


Someone I've Wanted

by Mokou



Category: Neon Genesis Evangelion
Genre: F/F, M/M, Suicide Attempt, Zombie Apocalypse
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-08-29
Updated: 2017-05-16
Packaged: 2018-02-15 06:01:00
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply, Underage
Chapters: 31
Words: 118,497
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2218461
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mokou/pseuds/Mokou
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Shinji Ikari is the newest child at a survivor's group two years after the start of the zombie apocalypse. Rejected and humiliated by many of his peers, he wishes for a friend to laugh and enjoy his life with. His request is granted in a boy named Kaworu, and meeting him might be the best thing that could have happened.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Another Day

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Edit 10/15/16: I went back and fixed the grammar/spelling mistakes in the first few chapters. Hopefully this is easier to read now. :')

          It was boring, staring at the same location for hours at a time. Shinji really loathed being on guard duty. The inactivity was terrible enough, but when he was paired with anyone that hated him, the hours were torture.

          Luckily enough, he'd been assigned with Rei today. Although neither of them have had a conversation lasting more than a few sentences in the two hours they've been kneeling painfully on top of the museum’s roof, the air wasn't heavy at all. In Shinji's view, Rei seemed to be a good person. She treated everyone the same, which was nice. He would feel better if he knew what she was thinking about all the time, though. He wished he could talk to her more, but he had learned very quickly that she didn't hold long conversations all that well.

          Shinji turned his head to look at Rei. Her brow was furrowed, and, unexpectedly, she was gazing down with hard eyes. He followed where she was looking, but he saw nothing move down in the plaza below.

          'She must be thinking of something she hates,' Shinji thought. 'Asuka calls her "creepy" when she does that.'

          Rei's finger was twitching sporadically on top of the pistol resting on her lap. Shinji was glad that she had taken the gun this shift— mostly because she wad a terrific shot, and he hated how loud the gun was when it fired. However, the pistol hasn't had to be used in a while, which he was glad for.

          Shinji stretched out and moved his legs to the side to get comfortable. He nudged something with his foot, and knocked his crossbow over. It made a short, sharp clanging sound, and Rei glanced over at him. He blushed and looked down at the ground.

          There was a zombie stumbling in the street a few hundred feet from them. It seemed to not be heading their way, but Shinji alerted Rei nonetheless.

          “Hey. There’s one of the lurkers right there,” he whispered.

          Rei stared at the zombie for a second. Her lips parted, and in her soft, airy voice, she detachedly replied:

          “Let’s watch it. If it comes close to the entrance, we'll alert Misato."

          For a few minutes, the thrill of observing a lurker caused Shinji’s boredom to dissipate, but the zombie soon hobbled towards another building, out of sight.

          Shinji breathed lowly. Back to the task at hand.

          After a second, he heard someone open the door behind them, and he turned to look.

          “Shinji! Rei! It’s dinner timeee!” Misato said. She popped her head around the door with a goofy smile and shut the door again. Shinji brightened up. He liked how cheerful Misato was— it was often infectious.

          They stood up, gathered their stuff, and opened the door to the steps leading down to the main floor. Shinji took his hand and scraped his fingernails across the limestone walls as they stepped down the stairs. Aoba and Hyuga came from the bottom, heading to take their place. They exchanged greetings and weapons, and then squeezed past Shinji and Rei.

          On the way to the kitchen, they passed the museum's archaeology exhibit and its blocked-off art exhibit.

        Suddenly, Shinji heard muffled voices. Turning his head, he saw two people climbing over the wooden barrier in front of the entranceway. As Shinji walked by, he recognized the clunking of Asuka’s metallic boots as she walked, and saw her and Hikari smiling at each other.

        Asuka was walking cockily with a bulging bag slung around her shoulders, and Hikari had a similarly bulky backpack on her back. He realized that he two had just returned from a scavenger mission, which they went on almost every single day.

        In the two weeks that Shinji had been here, he'd only gone on a scavenging trip once. He felt a pang of envy that they were the ones able to go outside most often, but he knew that the two ladies were the most skilled at scavenging. They were a team, and they had a massive reputation of being the best (which only seemed to go to Asuka’s head).

          Asuka noticed them passing by, and she smirked at Shinji. He faced forward so that she won’t start talking—or worse, bragging—to him. He quickened his pace, which Rei matched after a beat.

          The two were the first ones to arrive in the kitchen area. Misato was scooping some kind of mush into a bowl with a rubber scraper. Shinji smelled onions, and looked into a pot to see soup cooking.

          “I know it’s been the fourth day in a row that we've had onion soup,” Misato apologized, “But, our onions are growing very well, so…” she trailed off, smiling sheepishly.

          “I don't mind,” Shinji said. He was a little tired of the taste of onions, but he’s glad to be fed. Beggars can't be choosers.

          Shinji sat down at the table, across from Rei. She wasn't looking at him, but instead focusing on the patterns in the wood. Shinji watched her trace the complicated and winding swirls with her finger. It was almost mesmerizing. She seemed to be in a trance as well.

          “Dish up!” Misato yelled, flourishing her hands after she finished setting up the stack of plates.

          Shinji and Rei stood up and merged into the line. Shinji hung back behind Rei because he didn't like being the first person in line, but he should've thought of a certain person when he left his back open. After a second, his back was poked sharply, and pain shot through his body.

          Shinji gasped, attracting the attention of everyone in line. Shinji whirled around to see Asuka turned around, feigning innocence. She glanced quickly at his bewildered expression, with her hand on her mouth and her eyes turned upward, barely containing her laughter. A fork's prongs were visible under her armpit, hastily hidden. Shinji felt his temperature skyrocket, and his cheeks flushed with anger and embarrassment.

          Shinji didn't really want to show his emotions to anyone, but after she actually started _laughing_ , he lost his composure. 

          “What the hell, Asuka?!” He snapped, pissed off.

          “Huh?” Her mirth was cut off by his retort. Shinji's stomach dropped. He regretted saying anything, because now he knew that she was going to use her spot-on intuition of what hurt him to spew some insults.

          “Ohhh,” she cooed in a mocking voice, “Can't you take a joke?? I’m so sorry that I annoyed the amazing _golden boy!”_

          Of course Asuka knew that Shinji got treated better by the adults because he was the "new kid." For one, he didn't know all of their rules, so he got free passes when he made mistakes (which was often). She must despise him for that.

          Asuka scrunched up her face in fake-anguish. 

          "What will you do to me, huh? _Please_ don't hurt me, oh wonderful one!” Asuka squealed.

          Someone in line laughed behind him. Shinji was mortified. He couldn't take her jeering anymore, and he stepped forward to grab his food. He gathered his silverware as fast as he can, not caring if he grabbed any extra utensils. He raced to the table, but he was reminded that Asuka wouldn't forget what happened.

          Shinji felt his side being elbowed roughly as Asuka sat down right next to him, but when he turned to react, she was facing the other way with her nose in the air, ignoring him. Asuka struck up a conversation with Hikari right afterwards.

          Shinji still felt uneasy, but he started to sip on his onion soup to clear his mind. He couldn't help but overhear the conversation that Asuka and Hikari were having, and after listening to them chatter and giggle for a while, jealously about how close the two friends were arose in his mind.

          Shinji wished that he had a friend that would talk and laugh with him, because he was incredibly lonely being the newbie in this group that nobody wanted to hang out with. It didn't help that he was hated by almost all the children his age, too. Sure, Hikari was kind to him, but she rarely left Asuka’s side. Only Rei would willingly spend time with him every once in a while.

          Pacing through the halls after dinner, Shinji was ready to just head to bed and calm down his hypersensitive nerves, but he noticed that someone was stepping right behind him as he went into the barracks, and his temper started to rear its ugly head again.

          He twisted around and was prepared to tell off the person who was playing a prank on him, but, instead, he met Rei’s gaze. Her eyebrows raised a little in surprise due to his quick turnaround. She didn't say anything at first, gauging the situation.

          After a few beats, she began talking calmly.

          “Misato said that you need to check the stockroom before you head to bed.”

          Shinji’s level of rage lowered, and he nodded. The stockroom was right next to the barracks where he was going anyway, so it wouldn’t be too much of a hassle.

          He changed his direction and walked into the small stockroom. He searched through all of the shelves, noting the supplies they still had. He noticed unfamiliar, new types of medicine, and opened them to check how full the pill bottles and bandages were. They must have been in the bags that Asuka and Hikari brought back.

          He picked the bags up and placed them on the shelves, and in doing so, he found that the bags still weren't fully unpacked. He reminded himself to tell that to Misato later.

          He kneeled to see if there had been any rats that had run through, but he saw no droppings on the floor. To make sure, he dropped down to the ground, but at the same time, the door opened and hit him in the butt.

          “Huh?” Shinji rolled around, looking upwards. He saw Kensuke’s confused face and Toji’s sneering one. He paled and looked down, humiliated at being caught as being vulnerable and weak on the floor.

          He wondered if they would step on him.

          Toji was the one person that hated him the most in the entire group, and he made his animosity extremely obvious. In fact, Toji had punched him the first day he arrived to the group. Shinji suffered from an ugly bruise on his cheek for the rest of the month.

          In Shinji's opinion, his punch wasn't unwarranted. Toji’s sister, Sakura, was almost crushed to death the same day that he met up with the group. The two of them had been talking amicably, and a piece of the building they were under began to fall. If he had gotten out of the way with her, and not just ran without thinking, she wouldn't have been injured. Even weeks later, Sakura could barely stand up, and she was constantly in and out of consciousness.

          Shinji felt extremely guilty, knowing it was all his fault. However, no matter how many times he apologized, Toji seemed to never forgive him.

          Toji clearly couldn't even get over a grudge caused by his sister being hurt. It was awful, yes, but she hadn't been _killed._

          That frustrated Shinji a lot, because he’s had more deaths happen to him in the past few years than Toji seemed to have suffered in his entire life, and he was forced to learn how to let go of people. He could still remember everything that happened, and if he was honest, he was still bitter and emotionally devastated.

          His awful life started long time ago, when Shinji was left for dead by his father right after the apocalypse began. He was twelve, and he had happily been with his mother and father all his life.

          His mother had been bitten by a lurker when his family absconded from the city that they had lived in, and although both Shinji and his father prolonged her survival for as long as they could, she succumbed to the disease a week after. She begged for him to kill her before she could hurt them, and his father had no choice, but he wasn't the same afterwards.

          Shinji was abandoned a few days later at a railroad station on the outskirts of the town.

          The only reason why he was able to survive and flourish in those times was that he was fortunate enough to meet up with a wandering lesbian couple that cared for him for the rest of the year. 

          The memories of being with two wonderful women, Maya and Ritsuko, were some of the best ones he had. It was many of those moments that he thought of when he became depressed. They had been very intelligent people, which was enough to help them all survive impressively throughout all the chaos.

          Maya seemed to have an entire wilderness survival manual memorized. She had been able to tell after a moment if something was poisonous, or if something would be alright to eat or take with them for natural medicine. She had fingers that were perfect for making traps or sewing clothes. Ritsuko, on the other hand, was very educated in weaponry. She had been taught to shoot and hunt for sport when she was a little girl, and her aim was near-perfect. Squirrels, rabbits, and even deer became dinner for them every few days. With those skills, Shinji had been surprised when he learned that they had been scientists together, working for the government before everything happened.

          While Shinji was gazing down, he began to snap back into the present once he heard Kensuke begin to whisper to Toji.

         "... some kind of freak... staring off into space... lunatic..." Toji murmured back. Kensuke nodded.

         "Let's get out of here, Toji," Kensuke said.

          Before they slammed the metal door shut with unnecessary force, Toji leered at Shinji again.

          The last of his day ruined, Shinji left the room and went into the barracks, not feeling well enough to report to Misato.

          He headed to his bunk and laid on it, resting his head on his pillow and ignoring Hyuga when he came into the room and started to read.

With the energy sapped out of him, Shinji fell asleep rather easily. He slept so soundly that, even when Misato came in to get information on how the stock looked, he didn't even twitch. It was a good and dreamless sleep.


	2. An Awkward Mission

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shinji is assigned to a scavenger mission with the best friend of the boy he hates most. It's weird, to say the least.

          Shinji woke up to Hyuga firmly shoving his shoulder back and forth, calling out his name.

          “Shinji, hey. Kid, wake up,” he said impatiently, ceasing his pushing when Shinji blinked sleepily.

          Shinji rubbed the sand out of his eyes as he sat up. Hyuga looked down to him with a smile full of amusement, and Shinji sleepily glared at him before slowly getting up, pushing the covers away. His arms felt heavy, like they had been filled with stones. He felt a cramp by his ankle, and he hissed. He massaged the area to lessen the tension in his muscles.

            “Sorry dude,” Hyuga apologized as he moved out of the room. He seemed fully awake, and Shinji felt glad that he got to sleep in longer because he was a teenager.

            Shinji followed him to report to Misato before breakfast. He walked through the hallways and passed by Kensuke. Like usual, both boys pretended the other wasn’t there.

            Once Shinji reached the kitchens, he saw what today's breakfast was going to be. There seemed to be a mushed paste on the counters. Looking closer, Shinji found chunks floating in the paste. He checked behind him to see if anyone had came in, but when he saw nobody, he grabbed one of the pieces and popped it in his mouth.

          Shinji grunted at the explosion of sour-ness, and his face wrinkled into distaste.

          Shinji recognized the taste of disgusting crab apples, for they had been served before. There were a few trees with crab apples growing near the park in the city, but the group didn't get any of those apples often because the park was near the far end of the town— the housing district. The part that was covered with zombies.

          He really hated crab apples, but the group needed their Vitamin C to keep healthy.

           Shinji recovered from the crab apple's assault on his tongue after a bit and went into the dining area. There, he found Misato leaning against one of the pillars, talking to Aoba.

           He caught a bit of their conversation before Misato noticed him, and she grinned.

           “Good morning, Shinji. Breakfast will be in a few minutes,” she said, coming over to ruffle his hair.

          “’Morning,” Aoba acknowledged him. 

          “Good morning,” Shinji replied. Then, he remembered what he wanted to say to Misato the night before.

          Shinji reported on the amounts of medicine, the state of their rations, and the lack of rats. At the end of his spiel, he felt guilty, and said:

          “I know that I forgot to tell you about the stockroom yesterday. I'm sorry.”

          Shinji waiting for Misato's reaction, subconsciously holding his breath.

          Misato's face went back to a neutral expression. She paused a second, thinking. 

          “I have to warn you to not do that again, but… nothing bad happened because of it, so…” Misato smiled.

          Shinji felt immensely relieved. Misato glanced out the window, and she looked at Shinji after a moment.

          “Wait, what did you mean when you mentioned the backpacks the girls brought back?” Misato questioned. "Was there something wrong with them?"

          “Oh, no. I just saw that the bags that Asuka and Hikari used for scavenging haven’t been checked yet,” Shinji said.

          “Huh. Did you check what was in the bags?” Misato asked.

          "Oh. Uh... No, I didn’t,” he said, realizing he should have at least looked at them— if not unloaded them himself. He mentally smacked himself for the mistake, and he began to apologize.

          “I can do that,” Aoba interjected. “Kid, you should eat. I reckon that unpacking the bags should only take a few minutes; I’ll be right back.”

          “Thank you, Aoba,” Shinji said, grateful beyond belief. His stomach was starting to gurgle murderously.

         People began filtering in to sit down and await their first meal. Misato jogged into the kitchens to make sure breakfast was ready, and after a little bit, she came back out with bowls and plates stacked on her arms.

          “Come and dish up!” she said, sweating a little from the job.

          Shinji got his food and sat down again. This time, though, he sat farther away from Asuka and Hikari.

          Taking advantage of his absence, Toji and Kensuke sat down by the girls at the table. Shinji's stomach churned.

          Shinji shoved food into his mouth, wanting to leave as soon as possible. He tried not to listen to what the other children were saying, or if they were talking about them.

          They had to be talking about them. They were laughing undoubtedly at his mistakes, and how much of a failure he was.

          He tried to focus on anything else.

         The wood of the table. The blue, tiled floors. The sounds of birds chirping and the wind flowing through the trees, and the scrape of branches against the outside walls of the museum. The smell of food. The sight of blue hair and scarlet red eyes, and a blank expression.

          Oh— there's Rei.

          Rei came over to the table, but she didn't sit down at first. She held her plate in her hands, and she seemed uncharacteristically conflicted. She looked at the group of children sitting closely by each other at one end of the table, and then she turned her head to look at Shinji sitting by himself, avoiding her eyes. Shinji waited for her decision, preparing himself to be rejected.

          However, Rei surprised him by walking over and sitting across from him. Shinji was filled with a sense of déjà vu _._  

          Shinji looked confusedly at her, speechless. She started to eat, acting like it was nothing.

          The group of children on the end of the table had stopped speaking, and out of the corner of his eye, Shinji saw their heads turn, and their eyes widen. He stopped himself from looking at them, and instead focused on Rei.

          'Who knows,' Shinji thought, 'maybe she truly believed that it really wasn’t any trouble to sit by him.'

          Shinji felt happy, and he dramatically slowed down his eating pace.

          After breakfast, Shinji made his way to Misato to learn of his duties for the day.

          He expected the usual. An hour of cleaning, then an hour of guard duty. Lunch. A half-hour break. Two hours of guard duty. Maybe a little time tending the garden if he got out early. Lastly, either cleaning again or break again. Then, off to bed.

          Misato dropped a bomb on him once he got to her.

          “There’s been a change on schedule for today. You’re going to go scavenging with Kensuke. Make sure you make it back before dinner, and also get the backpacks from the storage room. Hikari will be taking over cleaning for you,” Misato said, scribbling in her notebook.

          What, Shinji thought.

“What,” he said.

He had only been scavenging once, with Asuka of all people. She was a natural at finding things that people left behind, and, although her bag was full at the end, his had been embarrassingly empty. He did find a hammer and some nails, but Asuka complained anyway about his slowness and how he was a liability to her. Due to her insistence, Shinji hadn't been allowed to go scavenging again. 

Misato walked off after she delivered her message, but Shinji just stood there in shock. He half-believed that he didn’t even hear what she had just said right, even though she had been standing only a few feet away from him.

Was this his second chance? Did Misato and the other adults give him another try to redeem himself? 

Shinji really didn't want to let them down, but going outside terrified him.

         He hoped Kensuke would help him during this trip.

         If not, he was screwed.

         -------

Shinji met Kensuke in the janitorial closet near the back door of the museum. Kensuke carried Asuka’s backpack and a shotgun, and he looked as uncomfortable as Shinji felt. He wouldn't look Shinji in the face.

Shinji was carrying a pack with ammo and bandages, and a bag with their lunches and a bottle of water. He also had a machete on him, held in a leather strap that was belted tightly around his waist.

“So…” Shinji started talking. Kensuke glanced at him. It was silent again.

“Shall we… go…?” Shinji finished after a minute, moving towards the door uncertainly.

“Yeah,” Kensuke agreed curtly. He scratched the back of his neck. Shinji opened the door for him, and Kensuke mumbled a 'thank you.'

The two boys went out to the empty parking lot. It was fairly warm outside, and Shinji liked the feeling of a breeze on his neck. He took a large breath in, smiling a little at the freshness of the air. It was nothing like the old, stale air inside the museum.

After a little bit of walking, they agreed to head towards the nearest residential streets, where there would likely be more supplies to recover in the abandoned buildings. They walk two blocks down until Shinji noticed something.

“Um… Kensuke?” Shinji asked.

“Hm?”

“Are you from around here?”

Shinji had realized that Kensuke was leading the both of them as they had navigated through the streets. Kensuke had been looking at and commenting on the street names, and he pointed out landmarks and where each street would lead to if they followed them.

Kensuke lightened up a little from his question.

        “Yeah, I was born and raised here.” Kensuke smiled. Shinji relaxed.

“That’s so cool,” Shinji replied.

“Toji and Hikari are from this small town, too. I went to school with the both of them. That was so fun,” Kensuke seemed to be reminiscing, and he looked at the sky.

The two became silent once again, until Kensuke saw something. He whistled a low note.

         The two boys ducked down behind a children’s playhouse in front of the house they had been walking by. Shinji placed his hand on the holster that was holding his machete. He felt himself begin to sweat. He gave a Kensuke what he hoped to be a questioning look.

“There are a few lurkers coming from the intersection in front of us. I don’t think they’ve seen us yet, but we shouldn't go any further down the road just in case there are more,” Kensuke whispered.

Shinji nodded. The two peeked over the walls, waiting. Once all of the zombies hobbled away from them, they sighed in relief. Kensuke turned to look at the house they were hiding by.

“Let’s check out this house right here,” Kensuke decided.

“We should have lunch afterwards,” Shinji said.

         Kensuke agreed, and the two boys walked onto the porch. Shinji checked all around to make sure that nothing had noticed them, and then he covered Kensuke as he opened the creaky door and went into the home.

The two boys quietly sneaked around the first floor. There were no blood-tracks or any sounds of movement, which seemed promising. The air smelled like grass; the scent came from a window cracked-open in the living room that led into the backyard. Kensuke tried to hold his nose, but he began to sneeze a few times.

        "Damn allergies..." Kensuke sniffed.

         Kensuke closed the window shut.

“I’m going into the kitchen,” he said, pointing to the room with his shotgun. He rubbed his snot off his face.

“I’ll look into the bathroom,” Shinji replied.

Opening the door fully once he found the toilet, Shinji noticed a corpse laying inside the bathtub and he panicked. He slammed the door shut and sprung backwards, dropping his machete. It fell with a klank, and Shinji perked his ears up to hear if anything had moved inside the bathroom.

Not thinking clearly, and paranoid, Shinji staggered into the main room. He weakly called for Kensuke.

“Ke… Kensu… Kensu.. ke… There’s something… in the bath... room…” Shinji began to hyperventilate.

“Huh?” Kensuke called back from a few rooms away. “Did you say something, Shinji?”

Shinji sat down on the rug to calm himself down as quickly as he could, feeling like an idiot for getting so worked up. He tapped his fingers on his thigh to a steady beat. He controlled his breaths until he was able to regulate them into a normal rhythm.

“Nevermind,” Shinji said loudly. He stood up after a minute to nervously go back to the bathroom door. Bracing himself, he quickly opened the door. He wanted his uneasiness to go away as fast as it possibly could, so he pulled off the metaphorical band-aid and went back inside the bathroom.

The body was resting in what seemed to be the same position, so Shinji dropped his guard. He kicked the body with the tip of his sneaker. The corpse didn't move.

        He kneeled next to it, and that’s when he saw that the forehead of the person had been mangled. His head had been caved in as well, and, on the edge of his sunken-in face, there was a marking that was clearly made from a boot.

He stopped looking at the body, feeling squeamish. He instead rummaged through the drawers under the sink, finding some feminine pads and tampons and stuffing them in his bag.

He took out their water bottle and drank a few gulps, and then he searched behind the bathroom's mirror.

There was an unopened package of razors, a filthy toothbrush, a cotton ball, a used q-tip, and a bottle of cologne. He took the razors and spritzed the cologne on himself and put it back. He closed the mirror, and then realized that the cologne smelled kind of funky. The closest smell he could relate the cologne to was cinnamon. A very musky, earthy cinnamon.

Shinji went back into the main room. Kensuke was sitting on the arm of a tattered couch, reading a comic book with a concentrated expression. Shinji peeked behind him to try to read as well, but Kensuke looked at him and sniffed.

“What is that?” Kensuke asked. “Is that… cologne?”

“Yeah.” Shinji felt embarrassed.

Kensuke stared at him for a moment.

“Toji likes that kind of stuff, too,” Kensuke said.

Shinji didn't know what to say, so he didn't respond.

“Toji used to put on tons of cologne before school started. He thought that it made him a chick-magnet.” Kensuke grinned again.

Kensuke got up, folding the comic book in half and putting it in his pocket.

“Let’s check out the upstairs,” Kensuke said.

They both made their way to the stairs. The two boys slowly treaded up the steps, holding up their weapons, poised to counter anything that came their way. Under Shinji’s foot, a step loudly creaked, startling the both of them. Kensuke gave Shinji an exasperated look, and Shinji smiled nervously back. Seeing nothing down the hall as they walked onto the top floor, the two lowered their weapons. Kensuke pointed to the door closest to them, and Shinji gripped the doorknob firmly.

Shinji counted to three under his breath. At three, he harshly twisted the knob and forced the door open. Kensuke pointed his gun at the open room, but it was empty. The room was decorated with stickers and posters of sailboats, and there was a small, unmade bed in the corner. Its blankets had been ripped off. There was also an open closet, but there seemed to have nothing alive inside it.

“This room had to have been a kid’s,” Shinji commented.

“Yeah, seems so,” Kensuke answered.

The two went to work searching through the drawers in the room, but they didn't really expect to find anything useful. No weapons or containers of food would be found in a bedroom, especially one that belonged to a child.

Kensuke rifled through the clothes remaining in the closet, but there was not much still hanging up. The majority of the shirts left were very small, and there was only one pair of pants. Kensuke grabbed the pants and shoved them in his backpack. Once Shinji finished looking through the drawers, he came over to look through the bigger shirts with Kensuke.

“Let’s only take a few shirts,” Kensuke says, starting to look at all of the choices. He focused on an army shirt with pictures of airplanes and tanks on the front.

“This is so cool!” Kensuke says, holding it up and chuckling. "It's a damn shame it's not my size."

On the other side of the closet, Shinji grabbed a plain white collared shirt and stuffed it in his bag. He also gathered three pairs of socks, two of which were striped, and a pair of plain white briefs that he liked.

At that moment, Shinji’s stomach growled viciously, and he sat down on the bed. He took the packages of food out of his bag, unwrapping the paper around one of them. Kensuke sat down by him, asking for the water bottle, which Shinji handed over to him.

Their lunch was sandwiches filled with the gross-smelling chunky crab apple paste. Shinji gave the other sandwich to Kensuke, and then he steeled himself and took a big bite.

Shinji’s face scrunched up, and his eyes began to water.

After his tongue stopped feeling numb, Shinji noticed that Kensuke was looking at him with a knowing semi-smirk. He took a bite of his own sandwich.

“Yeah, I know. These apples suck,” Kensuke said, mouth puckering as well.

The two boys ate their lunch, distributing the remaining water equally.

They left the kid’s bedroom, preparing to look into the last two rooms. Kensuke noted where the upstairs bathroom should be, and he motioned to the far door on the right. Kensuke held the knob while Shinji positioned himself, and after a few seconds, the door flew opened.

Kensuke was right in his guess. They found a much nicer bathroom, complete with a toilet, shower, and bathtub. Shinji remembered that he used to hate baths when he was a kid, but now he wished that he had the chance to take one again. Hot water was a luxury.

        Shinji pulled open the shower curtain, but nothing was hiding inside.

Kensuke opened the cabinet drawers, but they were bare. He fell onto his knees and discovered a half-full container of aspirin hiding behind the toilet.

        "Sweet!" Kensuke exclaimed.

Shinji tried to open up the mirror door, but it seemed to be just a normal mirror. Shinji stepped into the bathtub and took an unopened bar of soap. He almost knocked over a bottle of shampoo, but he managed to dive and catch it before it crashed on the ground.

The two left the bathroom and began to enter the last room. Kensuke started to open the door, but then a shuffling noise came from inside. Wide-eyed, they stood there, listening intently.

Kensuke cracked the door open and peeked through. After just a second, he turned to Shinji, looking very concerned.

“Lurker,” Kensuke mouthed. Shinji swallowed, wanting to leave the house immediately.

He would voice his thoughts, but he didn't think Kensuke would be happy with him for suggesting that they could leave out-loud. In any case, they needed to find more items to bring back to satisfy Misato and the others.

Kensuke gestured to Shinji’s machete. They knew that the sound of gunshots would draw in more zombies— or worse, other people. Shinji had never killed a lurker before, but he felt that he had the duty to kill it because he was the one holding the knife. His adrenaline spiked in preparation, and he nodded with determination at Kensuke.

Kensuke pushed the door open and Shinji rushed in. The lurker was sitting down, eating a cat that was spread out bloodily across the carpet. Shinji began hearing the worst kinds of mushy, nauseating sounds.

Shinji tried not to look at the cat, knowing that its guts and entrails spilling out would be a grotesque sight to see. If he looked at that, he would most certainly puke. He focused harder at what he needed to do.

Shinji thrusted his machete into the top of the lurker’s head, stopping only when only the handle of the knife was visible. The lurker was silent immediately, and Shinji waited a few moments with bated breath. 

When the lurker failed to stir, Shinji roughly pulled his machete out of the corpse's skull. He whistled to Kensuke to let him know that it was safe to come in.

Kensuke burst in, gun still at the ready. He lowered it once he saw the corpse and cat, his face contorting first into anger, and then into anguish.

“That’s just… not right…” Kensuke said, somber. Shinji felt the same.

They splitted up to search for supplies, trying to ignore the room's pervasive stench and the rusty stains of old and new blood soaked into the rug.

Shinji crawled under the bed, coming up with a bottle of hand-sanitizer and a stray fork. Kensuke rummaged through the closet, finding it empty of clothes and hangers. There was a board game on the top shelves of the closet, which Kensuke wished aloud that they could take back with them. He found a pack of cards next to the game, which he placed in his bag instead.

Shinji noticed that there seemed to be something poking out in one of the back pockets of the dead lurker, and although he became a little sick moving towards the corpse, he shoved his hand in the zombie’s pocket to retrieve the mystery object. He pulled out a mini Swiss Army knife.

Kensuke looked over, and he gasped in surprise.

“What a find!!” Kensuke declared, coming over to look at the knife.

Shinji handed the knife to him tentatively and Kensuke hastily opened it to look at the different tools it had. He spread out the blades to examine them. With an intensely involved look on his face, Kensuke inspected each feature of the knife with interest.

Shinji found that a little weird.

Once Kensuke finished inspecting the Swiss knife, he put it in his backpack.

“Let’s get back to the group,” Kensuke said.

Shinji agreed with him, and they both moved to leave. They exited the house with their finds, ready to go back to the museum and meet up with everyone as soon as possible. It had been quite a successful mission, but they both really itched to go back home.


	3. The Lockdown

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After Shinji and Kensuke arrive back from the mission, gunshots are heard outside. Shinji experiences his first lockdown, complete with the meaningless chatter.

          The walk back to the museum was uneventful. The two boys, with the stress of the mission wearing off, were finally able to enjoy the outside as much as they want.

          It was silent except for the sounds of wind blowing against the trees, grass crunching under their feet, and the occasional cricket chirp. As they approached the compound, relief began to sweep through their bodies. Kensuke stretched his arms over his head and cracked his knuckles.

          Shinji looked upwards to the top of the museum, searching for the shapes of anyone on guard duty. He didn't see anyone up there, but there was a break when people switched positions during shift changes, so he wasn't too worried.

          They arrived to the wooden barriers in front of the museum, and they climbed over each blockade slowly, making sure that nothing spilled out of their bags along the way. Once the two navigated to the last barrier, they both heard some sounds coming from inside. Shinji froze to listen as Kensuke dropped his backpack on the other side of the pillar, but they went back to climbing once Misato’s shouting was heard in the assortment of sound.

          The atmosphere in the room was intensely thick. There was a circle of adults standing in the main hall, and by the looks of it, almost everyone had been crying. Everyone stared at them as they came over, but nobody said a word. Shinji turned to look at Misato, who he expected to be the most capable during whatever was happening, but she seemed to be distraught.

          “What’s going on?” Shinji spoke first, looking at all around. Any kind of happiness he had during the journey back had evaporated. 

          Misato dried her wet eyes with her sleeve. She tried her hardest to stop her tears in an effort to stay tough, and she grabbed Shinji arm. She then turned to Kensuke.

          “Find Toji,” Misato commanded, indicating her head towards the basement door. Kensuke seemed worried at what was going on, but he jogged off anyway to enter into the infirmary below.

          Misato looked back to give Shinji a smile. She looked like she was going to start crying again, but she told him that everything was going to be okay. She then walked with Shinji to the basement door and then down the steps.

          Inside the infirmary were all of the kids, including Sakura who was sleeping on the mattress at the end of the room. The first thing Shinji saw was Hikari sobbing. With white, clenched knuckles, she gripped Asuka’s arm, who was sitting up on the bed. Hikari rested her head on Asuka’s shoulder, and Asuka threaded her hands through Hikari’s hair with a bitter expression on her face. She seemed to be frustrated.

          “Asuka, Shinji is back now,” Misato said quietly to her.

          Asuka looked up to Shinji with an uncaring look on her face. There was no bite, no mocking expression that Shinji was used to seeing on her.

          She lifted up her right arm, and the fabric of the loose shirt she was wearing fell down to reveal two marks on her elbow.

          “I found out this morning that I had been bitten yesterday on our mission,” Asuka muttered. She laughed wryly. "I'm going to fucking die."

          Hikari's body trembled.

          "I guess this is good-bye," Asuka said.

          Hikari tried to follow up her words with some broken sentences.

          “I… didn’t know that it had happened… We fought off… lu-lurkers close by us but I… I didn’t see that she got bitten!” Hikari blubbered, collapsing into her hands.

          Asuka pushed Hikari's face into the crook of her shoulder, and wrapped both of her arms around Hikari. Shinji watched them almost… cuddle.

          Something clicked in Shinji’s mind, and he stared at the two girls in a whole different way.

          Misato tugged on his shirt sleeve, interrupting his thoughts.

          “Let’s leave them be,” Misato said. She exited the room with her eyes downcast.

          Toji, and then Kensuke, moved to Sakura’s bed. She looked to be waking up for the day, and she smiled when she recognized the two boys right by her side.

          Shinji started to get nervous that she would notice him in the room once he sees this, so he left.

          For a while, Shinji hadn't really had the guts to be around Sakura. The first time that he had went into the infirmary to bandage a scrape on his cheek, he tried to talk to her and see how she was. However, didn’t get a chance to do so, because once Toji saw him enter, a heated altercation between both of them erupted almost immediately.

          Toji called him out for being a selfish asshole, which really hurt him. It _was_ the truth, though.

          It made Shinji fully realize what a dick he had been to think of only himself.

          However, the truth still hurt, and because of that, Shinji felt uncomfortable being around either of the siblings.

          The main room was vacant once Shinji reached the top of the landing. He didn't really know what to do now, so he settled on going to the dorms.

          As an afterthought, Shinji went into the stockroom to drop off his backpack. The backpack that Hikari had brought back laid on the floor, but it was empty of supplies.

          Shinji moved her backpack onto a shelf, and rested his next to it. He opened his backpack and placed the soap, razors, and hand-sanitizer bottle on the shelf. Then, he placed the fork in the container of dirty utensils.

          Afterwards, he pocketed the packages of pads and tampons so that he could take them to the bathroom.

          Shinji walked out the stockroom and journeyed to the bathrooms near the kitchen. Once inside the bathrooms, he opened the cabinets and added the feminine hygiene products to the existing stockpile.

          Shinji was thankful that he didn't get periods. Asuka hadn't told him much about the cramps that she had to endure, but the pain seemed indescribable.

          He stopped his train of thought. He didn't want to think about Asuka right now.

          Not when she was... oh god damn it... on her _deathbed_.

          After Shinji finished in the bathroom, he headed towards the kitchen to see when supper would be finished, but he stopped once he heard short, rapid booming sounds come from outside.

          Instantly concerned, he ran the rest of the way to the kitchen. Misato almost collided into him as she sprinted out of the room. She was holding up a walkie-talkie, and she didn't stop replying into it to apologize.

          “… doesn’t make sense, I know. Prepare for lockdown, I’ll get the children,” Misato said.

          “Were those gunshots?” Shinji asked, wringing his hands together and joining her.

          “Yeah. Hyuga just called in,” Misato answered.

          In instances where danger could come to the group, which included hearing gunshots nearby, the whole place was put on lockdown until the threat passed. Everyone would be gathered into the bunker in the basement while one of the adults on the roof spied over the wall, and if necessary, shot as many intruders as they could. An invasion of the group could mean disaster, so their goal was to survive with as much as they could protect.

          Shinji hadn't experienced a lockdown yet, so he followed Misato’s lead.

          Rei was coming out of the women’s barracks as they walked to the basement door. Her head was down, and she was nonchalantly reading a newspaper.  She looked up to see Misato and Shinji rushing towards the basement.

          Rei seemed to not know what’s going on, but she came with them nonetheless.

          Misato turned to inform her.

          “There’s a group of people with guns nearby, so we’re going into lockdown.”

          Rei nodded solemnly. She folded the newspaper under her arm.

          Misato then detached herself from the two kids.

          “I’m going to check into the barracks to find if any of the other kids haven’t heard what’s going on,” Misato said, opening the men’s door.

          Shinji and Rei kept going, heading into the basement. They passed the hospital where Sakura was still resting in bed. She had Kensuke and Toji with her, and they all seemed to not be aware what was happening.

          The three children stared at Shinji and Rei as they came into the room.

          Shinji looked a little guiltily at Rei, not desiring to talk to them.

          Rei’s expression turned from blankness to understanding after a moment of awkward silence.

          “We're in a lockdown right now. There’s people outside with guns,” Rei explained. Her words seemed to place an immediate panic on the other kids in the room.

          Kensuke’s eyes opened wide, and he began to fidget. He then muttered something that sounds a lot like:

          “Not another one…”

          At the same time, Toji cursed out loud. However, he hastened to assure his sister right afterwards.

          “It’ll be okay, sis."

          Toji kneeled down on the bed and squeezed Sakura's hand.

          “What’s going to happen with me?” Sakura asked him.

          “Don’t worry. We’re going to move you into the bunker with us. We're not going to abandon you,” Toji answered.

          Toji glanced back at Shinji, and Shinji stiffened. Toji then turned back to his sister.

          “Oi, Kensuke. Can you help me lift her bed up?” Toji asked. Kensuke nodded, and the two took hold of either side of her mattress and heaved Sakura into the bunker room.

          Shinji and Rei headed inside with them. The room was filled with pipes and crates, and a sparsely-used generator laid in the center of the floor. There were also a few shelves with cans of emergency food, flashlights, and matches. A pile of blankets rested near the supplies. It was a little chilly in the room, so Shinji rubbed his exposed arms.

          Misato entered the room with Asuka, Hikari, and Hyuga, and the two adults spreaded out the blankets for the kids to lay on. Toji gave Sakura the heaviest comforter to keep her warm on her bed.

          Everyone then settled in to wait until Aoba reported back to them from the roof.

          All of the kids started to talk, and for the first time, Shinji felt included in their conversation.

          Shinji learned about how much Hikari loved giraffes and how Asuka wanted to have a pet cheetah when she was little.

          Kensuke tried to tell some ghost stories, but only Shinji and Sakura got freaked out by them. Toji laughed at the climax of his tale, and Hikari shrugged and said that she'd heard those ones a million times before.

          Kensuke attempted to defend himself, and begin another "better" tale, but, to his chagrin, Asuka shut him down.

          "Your stories are atrocious, and definitely not what I want to be forced to listen to in my last hours of being alive," Asuka snapped, startling everyone.

          Nobody made a peep for a long minute. Asuka coughed, and then asked about everyone’s favorite food, trying to lighten up the mood again.

          The kids answered her question, but Asuka was unsatisfied with a lot of their answers.

          “What’s your favorite food?” Asuka abruptly asked Shinji. “And don’t you _dare_ say something childish like 'chicken noodle soup!”'

          Asuka glared at Kensuke, who rubbed the back of his neck and smiled guiltily.

          “I- uh… I like… ham sandwiches?” Shinji replied.

          Asuka stared at him, thinking for a minute. She had a satisfied look on her face, though, like his reply was a correct thing to say.

          “Umm… Rei, what’s your favorite food?” Shinji asked Rei, who hadn't said much this whole time. She looked up from her dusty newspaper comics.

          “Tofu."

          Her reply was instantaneous, and it caught some of them off-guard. Rei went back to reading.

          “Really? Huh…” Shinji said.

          Asuka harrumphed at her answer, but she then kickstarted the conversation again by asking everyone if they had owned any pets before.

          Meanwhile, the adults in the room paid no mind to the chatter. They talked quietly from time to time as they waited patiently for news from above. Misato got a little restless as time went on, and she went over to the shelves to examine the stock.

          After about an hour, from out-of-the-blue, static filtered in from Misato’s walkie-talkie. All speaking cut off completely.

          Hyuga’s voice reached through the radio.

          “Th-the… fzzzz… the coast is clear. There was a group of… bzzztt… five or six that came by and started shooting at two kids that were in front of the museum. Three fatalities, all from the larger group. I don’t believe that… bzzz… anyone saw me.”

          “Is it safe to come up?” Misato responded back, holding down the machine's red button.

          “Yeah, just wait a few min-” His voice cut off.

          “Hyu… ga?” Misato questioned. The air is still.

          “Shit,” Hyuga swore. “A herd of lurkers heard the shots… brrrzzz… they’re coming from downtown. It looks really bad.”

          Misato slumped against the wall. She rubbed her temples with a scowl.

          “Are we going to be able to go back upstairs?” Hikari asked. No one answered her.

          Suddenly, though, Misato jumped off from the wall and opened the door.

          “Everyone back upstairs, we need to fortify this place right now. Except you, Toji. Carry Sakura into the hospital and keep her company until this is all over,” Misato ordered.

          They all headed back into the main hall. Misato guided them to the blocked-off exhibits, and Aoba ran upstairs to get Hyuga.

          “Climb over the smashed exhibits and grab as much wood and stone as you can carry!” Misato ordered. "We need to block off our entrances the best we can!"

          With a grunt, Misato lifted up a table and lugged it to the front entrance to put it over the toppled pillars.

          The kids all took everything that they could carry to the front and piled it on the floor. They left the main outermost parts of the smashed exhibits to make certain that no intruder could enter through the sides of the museum.

          Everyone did their part as quietly as they could until Misato held up their hand to halt what they were doing. She stared, as still as a statue, as someone with a backpack climbed over the mountains of rubble into where they all were standing.

          The intruder was a handsome boy with white hair, and he was breathing heavily. He was holding his bloody arm, and gnashing his teeth together in pain. He didn't seem to realize everyone else in the room was there with him.

          Misato, Aoba, and Hyuga held up their pistols. Misato gestured to the children to stay back.

          “Are you bitten?” Misato asked. The boy looked up to see the weapons pointed at him. He was shocked, but his face hardened after the question.

          “No. No, I’m not.” The boy said confidently. He tried to take a step forward, but Misato yelled at him:

          “Stay where you are!”

          Nobody moved until the boy collapsed onto the ground. Hikari gasped, and she squeezed Asuka’s arm. Asuka winced, but nobody noticed.

          Misato’s resolve softened, and she lowered her weapon.

          “Let’s carry him into the bunker. Hyuga, check if he has any bite marks. He’ll stay in the room until we can check if he has any.” Misato turned to look at the children, with her mouth opened to speak, but she stopped when she saw Asuka. Asuka’s face was white as a sheet, and her body was hunched over.

          Asuka moaned a monstrous sound.

          “Fuck,” Misato said. “Change of plans. I’m going to take Asuka into the bunker. She’s beginning to turn.”

          Hikari’s head whipped to look at Asuka, and her fears were confirmed. She started crying silently, and Asuka slowly moved her hand up to wipe away her tears.

          Misato clicked her gun, opened its clip, and checked that it still had bullets. Hikari gasped, and she pleaded with Misato and then Asuka not to do anything stupid once Asuka left Hikari's side to follow Misato back downstairs.

          "No... no, Asuka! ASUKA! Don't go!" Hikari screamed.

          "You don't need to see this," Asuka replied, kissing Hikari's forehead. "I'll miss you, Hikari."

          “Hyuga and Aoba, carry the boy into the hospital and look at him there instead,” Misato said, ignoring Hikari's increasing cries of anguish.

          As the men started to pick up the boy, he opened his eyes. He moved his head up to look at them, but when he noticed Asuka, his expression changed.

          “Has she been… bit?” He asked.

          Aoba nodded, and the men continue lifting him up. However, the boy stopped them, getting onto his feet with wobbly steps. He took off his backpack, coughing. Zipping it open, he held up a vial with a dark-red liquid swirling inside of it.

          “This will cure her," He said.

          "What?" Misato asked. " _Cure_ her?!"

          "Oh god, thank god," Hikari stuttered. Without even hesitating, she ran over to take the vial from the boy. She then went back to Asuka and held it up to her lips.

          “Drink this, Asuka. You’ll feel better!”

          Hikari’s eyes looked a little crazy, and she looked at Asuka frantically.

          Shinji thought with a start that Hikari would justify doing nearly _anything_ to in the hope that Asuka, her... girlfriend, will survive.

         However, unlike her, he was skeptical about the boy's “magical cure." He almost didn't even _want_ to believe that there even was a cure for being infected by a lurker— one that could have saved the people he was with before!

          “Whoa! Wait- wait- wait,” Misato seemed unfazed, too. Instead of glad, she faced the intruder with fury on her face, baring her fangs.

          “Don’t worry. It’s... dead walker blood mixed in with some antibiotics. It cures anyone who’s been bitten, just as long as it hasn’t been a few days since the infection,” the boy said.

          He continued explaining more once he realized the tension in the room. He held up his hands, trying to earn their trust.

          “It's true! In one of the packs I’ve traveled with, this mixture cured an old man who had been bitten the day before. He looked worse than she does, so she should be fine!” The boy said.

          “See! It’ll work, it’ll cure you!” Hikari smiled, inviting Asuka to drink the vial.

          “Wait, Asuka!” Misato started, but Asuka, with a devil-may-care attitude and a shrug, gulped down the concoction.

          Hikari immediately starts sobbing on her, but Shinji saw that she was grinning from ear to ear, and muttering "you're saved... you're saved!"

          Asuka smiled with her. She seemed to truly believe that she was going to be all right, as well.

          Misato was fuming, but she held her tongue.

          “We’ll wait and see if she feels any better. Hikari, take Asuka into the hospital. I’ll bring in some food in a bit.”

          “Gotcha!” Hikari said.

          Misato turned to the stranger, scowling. With no hint of good-naturedness, she pointed to him rudely and said:

          “You. We’re going to carry you into the hospital as well.”

          The boy smiled, and he began to thank her.

          “If you’re fooling us, though,” Misato cut him off, her expression going terrifyingly angry. “You’re going to be kicked out of here faster than you can say lurker, treated or not.”

          The boy looked at her with an assuring expression.

          “It’ll be no problem,” he replied.

          The boy allowed himself to be hauled up. The men carried him downstairs. He met Shinji’s eyes for a moment before he was moved behind the door, and he flashed Shinji a smile.

          Shinji didn't smile back. His mind was reeling. Misato walked into the kitchen to start preparing food for Asuka and the rest of the group, but he was still stuck in the same spot.

          ‘What the hell just happened?’ Shinji thought. He followed Misato, rubbing his forehead.


	4. Kaworu

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Asuka falls asleep after she drinks the vial. Everyone distrusts Kaworu except for Shinji, who gets to talk with him for a bit.

          The whole compound was on their best behavior for the rest of the day. People treaded softly and talked quietly as the mass of lurkers loitered around the front of the building. Faint periods of erratic moaning could be heard outside, which reminded everyone of the danger that they had been put in. The overall mood in the group was gloomy, because many of them realized that they were going to be stuck inside for a long, long time.

          Misato gathered everyone together a few hours after Asuka drank the stranger’s mixture. She revealed that Asuka had fallen into a comatose state. The news worried Hikari the most, and she refused to leave Asuka’s side after the group broke up to do their chores.

          After his shift in clearing up the kitchen before dinner, Shinji visited her and Hikari in the infirmary. He saw that even though Asuka was still unconscious, her face was regaining color. She looked peaceful in her sleep, which was a contrast to the Asuka who had nearly lost her nerve the day before.

          Hikari talked with him while he stayed. Their clipped conversation was almost entirely about Asuka, and Hikari readily gushed about her to him, revealing some bits of the softer side of Asuka that only Hikari knew. He guessed it was Hikari’s way of coping with all of this, but it didn't stop him from getting embarrassed. He reminded himself to not bring up their chat to Asuka after she woke up.

          Shinji knew that she’d kill him if he ever revealed that he now knew things about her, such as where she was ticklish, how big the birthmark on her butt was (and how it looked like a heart), and why she didn't let anyone see her brush her teeth (because of her anxiety).

          During a lapse in their talk, Shinji suddenly recalled that he had once heard that coma patients were sometimes able to listen to the people around them. He wondered if Asuka had heard everything that they’d been talking about. Thinking about her wrath made him begin to sweat, so he moved his shirt away from his chest to cool down. He really prayed she hadn't been listening this entire time.

          Shinji waved good-bye to Hikari after they ended their talk, wanting to go check on Misato again in the kitchens. However, curiosity about the new boy made him change his mind. He decided to walk over to the stranger’s bed on the far side of the room, where the boy was sitting on the mattress, staring out the half-opened window with lidded eyes. His arm laid in a makeshift sling made of gauze and held together with strips of cardboard. He looked very tired, with bags hanging under his eyes from a lack of sleep.

          Shinji couldn't make out by the stranger’s expression if he had been attentively listening to his and Hikari’s conversation, so he choose to give him the benefit of the doubt. Shinji cleared his throat to get his attention, wondering if he was too exhausted to speak with him.

          After he coughed the boy started in surprise, blinking, and turned around to look at Shinji. After a pause, he smiled at Shinji and graciously gestured for him to sit on the bed. Shinji accepted his offer and sat down on the edge of his mattress.

          As Shinji sat, his pants rode up a bit and exposed his ankles to the cool air coming from outside, which made him shiver. So, he stole a corner of the stranger’s blanket and draped it around his legs. Comprehending his situation, the boy shut the window with his good hand.

          Shinji didn't really know how to start talking with the new boy. He’d been thinking hard throughout his chores about how the stranger had discovered the cure for the disease, but he was unsure if asking him off-the-bat for an explanation would be taken offensively.

          Gladly, though, the boy seemed to notice his hesitation. He smiled a little wider and filled in the silence with an introduction.

          “It’s nice to meet you,” he said. “My name is Kaworu, who are you?”

          Shinji felt relieved to not be the first to begin talking.

          “I’m Shinji,” Shinji replied, lips upturned slightly as well.

          “How old are you, Shinji?” Kaworu asks.

          “I turned fourteen a few months ago,” Shinji answered.

          “Oh, so you’re my age, then,” Kaworu said, “I’m turning fifteen soon, in the fall.”

          "Ah, how cool!" Shinji replied. 

          Kaworu seemed friendly, and Shinji decided that he liked this new kid.

           “You have a pretty large group here,” Kaworu commented. He shifted so that he can see Asuka, and then he turned back to face Shinji.

          “Exactly how long has it been since she was bitten?” Kaworu asked.

          Shinji wasn’t with her on the scavenger mission, so he just reported what he knew to Kaworu.

          “It’s been over a day.”

          “Hmm…” Kaworu thought silently for a minute.

          “It will be… four… maybe five… hours until she may start to wake up. Her organs and other body parts will have to regain the ability to operate as they did before, and she’ll have to flush out the virus’ remaining strands somehow….” Kaworu contemplated in a whisper.

          Shinji strained to hear him, but he didn't understand what Kaworu was saying at all.

          “Flush it out….?” Shinji repeated, confused.

          “Doug did it by throwing up violently a few times… hopefully her body will excrete the particles some other way…” Kaworu pondered, not paying attention to Shinji.

          Shinji was horrified listening to Kaworu's inner thoughts. Kaworu glanced over and realized his musings must have had a terrible effect on Shinji, and so he hastened to reassure him about everything.

          “Nothing about with the virus itself will have an everlasting effect on her, I promise! It’s just that… for her to get better, her body has to detoxify itself from the virus’ effects,” Kaworu said.

          “Somehow that doesn’t… make me feel better at all,” Shinji said back, a little queasy. Kaworu wrapped an arm around his shoulders, trying to comfort him.

          “She’ll be fine, don’t worry,” Kaworu promised.

          Shinji accepted his comfort with minimal protest, and although he was conscious of the arm resting on his shoulder, he didn't make a move to shift away from Kaworu.

          Shinji heard the door open up behind them, but with his back turned away from the doorway, he was unable to tell who had come in until their voice called out to him.

          “Shinji! We need a quick word with you in the kitchens, now.”

          It was Aoba, and after he relayed his message, he quickly snuck out the room. His tone seemed serious. Kaworu dropped his arm, and Shinji stood up to meet with the adults in the kitchen.

          "I'll talk to you later, then?" Shinji said to Kaworu, scratching his neck.

          "Of course," Kaworu smiled.

           As Shinji walked out the door, he waved to Hikari and Kaworu, who both waved farewell in return.

          Once Shinji arrived at the kitchen, he saw that Aoba had his face poking out from the edge of the door frame. He gestured for him to come inside the room. That whole exchange seemed strange, like Aoba had been sneaking around the corner, waiting for him to arrive.

          Inside the kitchen were the three adults, all standing close together. As Shinji came in, Aoba walked out to stand guard outside of the room.

          “Shinji, we need to talk with you about Asuka,” Misato said, getting Shinji’s attention back from Aoba.

          “Okay,” Shinji replied, waiting for them to start.

          “How is she? Has the boy said anything to you about the “cure” that he was talking about?” Hyuga asked, without missing a beat.

          They both looked expectantly at Shinji for answers. He forced himself to relax and not get freaked out by this semi-interrogation.

          “She’s doing well, and her face is starting to have color again. Kaworu said that he had another person that he tried the cure on, and the person survived,” Shinji replied, purposefully not mentioning how the aforementioned person had to throw up quite a few times.

          Misato and Hyuga briefly locked eyes. Both of them looked back at him after a second, though.

          “I see... Has he told you how he... knew of this cure?” Misato asked.

          “No, he hasn’t,” Shinji said.

          “We are all hesitant to believe that such a cure exists, you get it, Shinji?” Hyuga added.

          “It is hard to accept…” Misato said, looking down. “This could have saved so many lives… I almost don’t even believe it….”

          “Yeah, I understand. It seems unreal,” Shinji agreed. The mood in the room was somber as nobody talked for a few long moments.

          “If Asuka really… does get better, which is something that isn’t a sure guarantee…” Misato began, “Then this will change everything…”

          She trailed off, but she snapped back to reality after a minute.

          “A-anyway, we also wanted to talk to you about him... Kaworu, is that what you said?” Misato asked.

          Shinji nodded.

          “What do you think he's like?” Misato questioned. Hyuga followed up her question by asking if he was a danger to the group.

          Shinji shook his head, smiling awkwardly. He held up his hands, feeling placed on-the-spot again.

          “No—well, I don’t really know, but he seems… nice. We talked for a little bit in the hospital room. I like him,” Shinji finished, his cheeks blushing pink a bit.

          Neither of the two adults spoke for a moment, processing his reply.

          “I’ll accept your— uh, first impression of him,” Misato said, nodding. “That should be everything."

          Shinji turned to leave the room, but Misato started talking again.

          “Wait, I almost forgot—can you open up his backpack and check what’s inside? I don’t believe anyone has looked inside there yet, and I need to get cooking."

          “Sure. Is it in the storage room?” Shinji asked.

          “Yep.”

          “Okay, I’ll look in it,” Shinji promised. “I’ll tell you what I find right after.”

          Misato smiled at him. She excused him with a wave of her hand, turning towards the back of the room where dinner was being completed. Hyuga walked in with her.

          Shinji left, heading towards the storage room. As he exited the room, Aoba got up from the wall, and with only a tiny grin and no explanation, headed back into the kitchens. Shinji felt better after he saw Aoba’s smile, but still kind of confused. He shrugged and continued walking.

         Once he entered the storage area, he found Kaworu’s backpack shoved away on the floor. Its main pouch was zipped open, and there seemed to be various boxes sticking out of it. He picked up a wooden box and looked in it to see that there are five more vials of the red, rusted-color liquid that Asuka drank.

         Shinji gently placed the box on the floor to give to Misato afterwards. There were also other boxes filled with packaged noodles and crackers, some medicine with a box of bandages, a bowl, a water bottle, a fishhook, some bullets, and a medium-sized metal container. He discovered that the container has some twine in it, a rock, and what he guessed was a bended tool made of steel. After thinking quizzically about what in the world the assorted things in the container could be for, he realized that the rock is possibly flint, the same stone that could be struck to make a fire.

          Shinji smiled, thinking about Maya’s efforts with fire and how she had always wished out loud that she had some kind of flint to work with.

          Under the large pouch of Kaworu's bag was a smaller, unopened one. Shinji zipped that one open and found a manga book inside it. He didn't recognize the characters on the cover, so he placed the book aside. There was also a folded shirt inside and a keychain of a music note.

The keychain was kinda cute, Shinji thought. He noted that there was no weapon of any sort inside his bag, which striked him as a little unusual.

         Shinji ended his exploration of Kaworu’s backpack and put all the supplies he took out back, sans the wooden box. He handled the box very carefully as he opened the door and made his way to the kitchen with careful steps.

          As he made his journey, Rei came through the basement’s door. She sped up to walk next to him, and she looked briefly at the box in his hands before staring up at him.

          “Hi, Rei,” Shinji greeted her.

          “Hi,” Rei said back.

          Rei turned to face forward, not caring about the box anymore.

          “I’m going to bring Hikari food. She doesn’t want to leave,” Rei stated out of nowhere. She seemed quite serious.

          Shinji smiled.

          “That’s very nice of you to do. I don’t know what dinner is going to be, but I’m sure that Hikari would appreciate a meal nonetheless.”

          Rei looked at him. She nodded in agreement.

          The two walked into the dining area, where Toji, Kensuke, and the adults were waiting.

          Misato grinned when the two finally entered, and she announced that dinner was ready. Shinji took her aside to deliver the box to her, which she opened herself, and she thanked him, telling him that he should get his meal. Shinji rushed over to the end of the dinner line.

          Shinji and Rei gathered up their food, a soup with onions and shriveled peas, and Shinji accompanied Rei as she delivered Hikari’s supper.

          They walked into the infirmary with their dishes, and Hikari looked at them and her bowl gratefully. Kaworu noticed them arrive as well, and he smiled at Shinji. Rei sat down next to Hikari, and Hikari started talking to her while she sipped her soup. Shinji choose to spend time with Kaworu as he ate, so he sat cross-legged on Kaworu's bed.

          “What is it?” Kaworu asked, trying to see what’s in his bowl.

          Shinji shifted his bowl so that Kaworu could see the contents inside.

          “It’s soup,” Shinji answered, spooning some into his mouth. It was bland as hell, but it soothed his gurgling stomach.

          Shinji noticed that Kaworu wasn't eating anything after a minute. He felt bad for not bringing him food as well, so he stopped slurping his soup with a guilty expression.

          “H-have you eaten yet?” Shinji asked. "Do you... want some?"

          “Oh, it’s fine! Really, I ate an hour ago. Misato brought down some bread. I’m fine, really,” Kaworu said, holding up his hands.

          Shinji blushed, but he nodded, relieved.

          Kaworu peeked over at the two girls and took out a half-eaten package of saltine crackers from his sweatshirt pocket. He slyly handed over a stack of them to Shinji, who took and ate them appreciatively.

          The two boys talked for a little bit as they snacked on the crackers. As the package started running out, Shinji asked Kaworu about what had happened before he came into the compound. Kaworu jerked, his expression changing from friendly to regretful in a flash. He stopped mid-bite munching on his cracker.

          “I can’t believe… I can’t believe this! I forgot about Mari! Damn it, damn it!” Kaworu yelled, moving his head down to rest in his hands. He massaged his face angrily.

          “Wha-what?” Shinji responded, startled.

          “I was with Mari when those people shot us!” Kaworu explained in a forced voice. He stood up quickly from his bed and grimaced harshly in pain when his cast bumped into the wall. He began pacing.

          “I need to meet up with her. She might be hurt, or attacked, or without supplies…”

          Kaworu started panicking. Hikari and Rei joined Shinji in staring at him with alarm as he paced back and forth. Hikari stood up and pushed lightly on his chest for him to stop moving and stressing himself out further.

          “Please, sit down. You’re freaking out right now, and you can’t go outside yet. You’re injured really badly.” Hikari said.

          Kaworu tried to protest, but Hikari talked straight to him.

          “I’m sorry, but you really should sit.”

          Her tone was enough to make him sit down. He was still overwhelmed, but he began calming down. He bent down so that his head rested between his knees. Shinji felt bad for him, and he wondered why his realization caused him so much pain.

          “Go get Misato,” Hikari told Rei. Rei ran out the door and returned with all three of the adults in tow.

          Kaworu was returning back to normal from his panic attack, but he didn't adjust his position of slouching forward when Misato talked to him.

          “Are you all right, Kaworu?” Misato asked, rubbing his back a few times.

          “Yeah… I’m… I’m good.” Kaworu responded.

          “Who is Mari?” Shinji asked him, wanting to know how important of a person she was to him. Was she his sister? Or maybe his mother?

          “She’s my best friend." Kaworu clarified. "She’s been my only partner throughout the apocalypse."

          Shinji noticed his use of the word ‘partner,’ so he assumed that Mari could be his girlfriend. He wasn't sure why, but he felt deflated. Kaworu went on.

          “I have no idea where she went… Shit, this is the worst… What the hell happened...?”

          “Hm... I saw a girl that went into the woods, but I don’t know if she was your ‘Mari’ or not,” Hyuga said.

          Kaworu perked up at his interjection.

          “Did she have brown hair? And glasses?” Kaworu asked, sitting on the edge of the bed, concentrated only on Hyuga.

          “Yeah, I think so,” Hyuga replied. He stared at the ceiling for a moment, recalling his memories.

          Kaworu used his arm to wipe off the moisture from his forehead.

          “She’s alive, then.” Kaworu said, sighing. “Thank god.”

          For a little while, the whole room was silent. Misato turned to Shinji and the others.

          “Let’s let him rest.”

          She then addressed Kaworu with a smile.

          “You can stay for as long as you like until you are well again. She might come back here to find you, so keep your hopes up.”

          Kaworu smiled back at her. He thanked her and the rest of the group and laid down on his side to get some sleep.

          The others filed out of the room one by one. Shinji was the last to leave, and he said goodnight to Kaworu. Hikari left the room to get her blankets, so Kaworu was left alone. She turned off the lights, pitching the bright room into darkness. Kaworu looked out at the starry sky through the glassy windowpane.

          When he was sure that everyone had left, Kaworu absentmindedly scrutinized his neck reflected in the glass. Hidden under his sweatshirt was a line of duct tape on the side of his neck. He slowly peeled it off to look under it.

          There was a bite mark faintly showing on the surface of his skin. Kaworu studied it for a minute and wrapped the duct tape over it again, making sure to firmly press it down to hide the mark.

          Kaworu pulled the covers over himself after about an hour of thinking, which he did a lot. He didn't know what was going to happen in the upcoming days, and that scared him. He had lived his entire free life micro-managing almost everything that happened, and he felt out of his element with such a loss of control.

          Kaworu fell asleep picturing dozens of scenarios.


	5. The Second Floor

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shinji goes on guard duty again and later gets coerced to go into a forbidden part of the museum.

            Shinji woke up early the next morning before even Aoba and Hyuga had gotten up. He heard loud, obnoxious snores coming from Kensuke's bunk, and he fought the urge to throw a pillow at him when his snoring made him unable to fall asleep again.

            Shinji noticed wetness near his chin and he got up, wiping off his mouth. In doing so, he realized that he had drooled all over his pillow. How embarrassing...

            Shinji flipped the pillow over and tried to cover the sides of it with his ears to block out the noise, but his efforts were in vain. After a minute, he became even more awake, and so he decided to just get up.

            In the dark room, Shinji got dressed and wore one of the white shirts he had grabbed on his scavenger mission. It was a little long, coming almost down to his crotch, but he thought it looked nice. He wished he had a mirror in front of him to find out, though. On his way out the door, he bumped into the table near Kensuke's bed, and Kensuke's glasses nearly fell to the floor. Startled, he pushed them back to the center of the surface and carefully made his way out of the room.

            Shinji didn't know if Misato was up yet, but knew that the women's room is off-limits, so he went to the kitchens to waste time. Glancing up at the clock revealed that it was only 4:38 am. Nobody was around, so he definitely knew that he was the first one awake.

            After making a quick trip to the bathrooms to see if his shirt looked alright on him, Shinji headed to the storage room to look at the small pile of books that the group had accumulated. There were a few of Kensuke's comic books, but he didn't feel like reading any of those. He also disregarded the piles of boring museum catalogs, exhibit fliers, and telephone books in the back. He checked out the other novels they had and was interested on the one they had about animals, so he sat down at one of the tables in the dining hall and read until the others began to get up.

            At six, he heard the clanging of dishware inside the kitchen. Misato stumbled into the dining room, yawning. She didn't seem to notice him, so she jumped when she saw him sitting there. He waved, saying hello, and Misato puffed up her cheeks in return, looking playfully-angry at him.

            Misato went back into the kitchen to prepare breakfast and left him to continue reading for another few hours. At eight, Misato came out again with armfuls of silverware and returned with more dishes.

            "What's for breakfast?" Shinji asked, setting down his book.

            "Huh? Oh, it's going to be bread with jam," Misato answered. She turned back to focus on setting up the dishes. It was a fairly light breakfast, but Shinji understood. With another person to feed and the inability to get more supplies, rations were certainly going to be smaller for a while.

            Even so, he hoped that crabapples weren't added to the jam. They would ruin the taste and turn the whole meal _sour._

            Misato told him that it was going to be a little bit until breakfast was finished, so she asked if he wanted something to snack on. Shinji nodded, and she headed back into the kitchen. She gave him a jar with a few pickles floating in it, but he struggled to twist the cap open.

            Misato watched him for a minute as he flexed his muscles and squeezed until he was blue in the face, but she then intervened and smoothly opened the jar with a twist of her wrist. Shinji was the one this time to puff out his cheeks at her, and she stuck her tongue out back at him.

            A half-hour passed and people started to come into the dining hall. Shinji ignored them and kept reading his book.

            It was a very fascinating novel. He had read through the facts about mammals and marsupials, and was now on the section about reptiles. Almost before breakfast started, Rei sat down across from him and took out her book to read as well. After a second, she spoke.

            "I was looking for that book," Rei said. Her voice wasn't accusing, but she did sigh a little. Perhaps that was why she had arrived so late to the dining hall; she could have been searching for it.

            "I'm sorry... I'm almost done with it, though," Shinji apologized, telling the truth. He only had to finish the last two chapters. She stared at him and continued reading her own book without replying back.

            Misato came out of the dinner hall, opening a jar of strawberry jam. After she placed the jam on the table and rearranged the meal to her liking, she called everyone to come get some.

            Shinji was the last one to go into the line, which was shorter than usual, for Hikari, Kensuke, and Toji seemed to be elsewhere. Asuka, obviously, wasn't there as well. He zoned out a bit as he waited until someone lightly tapped his shoulder. He turned his head around to see Kaworu, who is smiling, standing a little closer to him than Shinji would prefer. 

            "Good morning, Shinji," Kaworu greeted.

            "Ah, yes. Good morning," Shinji replied.

            Shinji waited a few seconds to see if Kaworu would retreat back a little, but instead, Kaworu pointed to the space in front of him.

            "Shinji, it's your turn."

            Shinji twisted back around to see that Kaworu was correct, and he shot him a thankful look before he stepped forward. He gathered up his bread, jam, and water, and made his way back to his table.

            Kaworu followed, sitting down next to him. Rei was engrossed in her book again, absentmindedly taking bites of her bread with her eyes glued to the pages.

            "What kind of jam did you get, Shinji?" Kaworu asked, using a knife to slather his bread with a clear jelly.

            "I got strawberry," Shinji answered. He noticed that Kaworu had chosen the apricot jelly, which was light orange and shiny.

            The two boys munched on their breakfasts, making small talk. Kaworu commented on the cloudy weather when he looked through the windows on the roof, and Shinji added that he hoped it didn't rain.

            Once breakfast ended, Misato gave Shinji his assignment for the day. He was assigned to go on guard duty, which lasted through lunchtime. It was good that he had gotten a snack before breakfast, because he was going to be starving. However, he wasn't told who would be joining him on his duty. Misato scanned the room, staring at everyone until her eyes landed on Kaworu, who had gotten up and now stood beside Shinji quizzically.

            Misato told Kaworu that he'd be working with Shinji today, which made Kaworu look at him happily. He didn't mind the assignment.

            The two boys visited the storage room on their way up to the roof and Shinji grabbed the gun they would need for the shift. He knew that Kaworu wouldn't be able to handle and shoot it correctly with only one arm. Before he did anything else with the gun, he made perfectly sure that its safety was on, and then he put it in his side pocket. He explained what guard duty was to Kaworu, who seemed to get the gist of it. 

            Afterwards, the two went on watch. They laid on their stomachs, making themselves as small as possible so that no lurker in the plaza below would notice them. Peering over the roof, they whispered to each other to pass the time.

            Kaworu asked what Shinji's favorite color was, which was blue. Kaworu told him he liked green colors.

            Shinji didn't know why, but he felt safe telling Kaworu anything. Maybe it was his kind voice, or the way he watched him ramble on, but Shinji was able to let down his walls.

            Before he knew it, Shinji was spilling out his personal thoughts to him without any regrets. He wanted to stop himself from talking, as he was babbling on and on without giving Kaworu a chance to speak, but Kaworu continued to smile encouragingly at him, leaning his head against his hand. He didn't seem to want to start speaking anytime soon, so Shinji continued.

            Shinji learned that Kaworu is a wonderful listener. He nodded and made the right expressions when he talked about different topics, almost like he was genuinely interested in everything Shinji wanted to say, and it warmed up Shinji's heart. His cheeks reddened, and he paused his talking.

            Knowing that someone was listening to him as he talked was a giant confidence booster. Shinji commented quickly on this, but once he said it, he realized that it sounded embarrassingly like he was praising Kaworu. Kaworu chuckled, thanking him anyway. Kaworu briefly placed his hands on Shinji's shoulder, somewhat as a friendly gesture, and the touch made Shinji feel something... weird.

            In the end, the two boys didn't even watch the plaza for the majority of their watch. Luckily, the herd of lurkers had widened out and they didn't get spotted.

            Nearing the end of their shift, when both of their stomachs were growling because of their missed lunches, and there was a lapse in the conversation, Shinji finally looked down. He didn't see any suspicious activity from the group of lurkers.

            However, he did get surprised when the door behind him was slammed open, causing a loud clang to reverberate through the air. Misato swore behind them, and all three of them dropped down, away from the stares of the lurkers below.

            Shinji peeked through a crack in the ledge and confirmed that almost the whole population of lurkers outside was looking right at where they had been sitting. He crawled on his belly to tell his observation to Misato, and after hearing his input, she made a "let's go" motion with two of her fingers.

            They crawled to the door and waited until they were hidden inside to stand up. Misato breathed a sigh of relief, but Shinji didn't let her relax so easily.

            "What the hell, Misato?!" Shinji spat out. "The lurkers nearly saw all of us!!"

            "I'm sorry, I forgot!" Misato replied. "I came up there to tell you guys that Asuka has woken up, alright?!"

            "R-really?" Shinji said, shoulders relaxing.

            Misato shrugged in response.

            "But... of course you guys wouldn't have wanted to know that!"

            Shinji harrumphed at her before he smiled, eager to see Asuka awake again.

            "Okay, okay, let's go!" Shinji said persistently, motioning for them to start going down the stairs.

            Misato slowly pulled the door behind them closed, and they rushed to the infirmary.

            The first thing that they saw when they entered was that Asuka and Hikari were sitting on Asuka's bed. Hikari was on Asuka's lap with Asuka's arms curled tightly around her. Asuka gave a side-glance towards them, but she didn't do more than raise an eyebrow.

            Hikari finished her comment to Kensuke and looked at them, grinning in absolute glee.

            "She's uuppp!" Hikari chirped, squeezing Asuka's hands on her lap.

            Before Shinji got a chance to congratulate her, Asuka stared at Kaworu and spoke, addressing him. Shinji noted that there was a small green stain on the side of Asuka's mouth.  He hoped that it wasn't vomit, but it... probably was.

            "Hey, thank you," Asuka said. "Your, whatever-kind-of-cure-thing, worked."

            "I'm glad it did," Kaworu replied back, smiling. His eyes flickered to the stain on her mouth as well.

            "So... did you throw up?" Kaworu asked, looking at her with sympathy.

            "Ah," Asuka grunted. She wiped her mouth with her sleeve frustratedly. "Crap. I thought I had gotten it all off."

            She spat on her sleeve and rubbed her mouth harder. She turned to Hikari, who confirmed that the puke was gone. Asuka turned back to them, looking satisfied.

            "So, yeah, I threw up a lot. It wasn't very fun," Asuka said, shrugging. "But yeah, it could have been worse. I nearly fucking died!"

            "I know that you deserve to be celebrating right now— because it's very good that you're alive and conscious— but you should still rest for a while. You might have a few other throwing-up fits, but they should succeed in ridding the virus' remains from your body," Kaworu said.

            "Sure, whatever. I'm tired as hell anyway," Asuka answered. She rubbed her face with one of her hands. Then, she perked up, seeming to remember something.

            "And hey! Can't you make the cure taste any better?!" Asuka critiqued with a grimace. Kaworu's mouth opened in surprise. 

            "It tastes like blood mixed with mold and shit! It's really fucking gross. What's in it, anyway?!" Asuka asked.

            Kaworu seemed to be at a loss for words, so Shinji answered for him.

            "It's dead walker blood."

            Asuka recoiled, her face scrunching up. She stuck out her tongue, trying to erase its ghost-taste from her mouth.

            "Oh my god..." Asuka muttered.

            Hikari was equally horrified. She stared at Asuka like she might collapse again.

            Then, Asuka's arms flew over to a small wastebasket on the side of her bed. In the process, Hikari maneuvered herself to the other side of the mattress, trying not to get in Asuka's way. Once the bin was under her lips, Asuka began retching. Hikari rubbed her back in circles, her face turned downwards. Disgusting sounds filled the room, including the noise of liquid and slush hitting the bottom of the basket. 

            Misato decided that now is the right time to leave, so she assigned Hikari to take care of Asuka for a few days and left the room. Shinji decided to follow, and as he left, Kaworu joined him as well.

            With only under an hour of free-time before lunch was served, Shinji traveled around the museum with Kaworu in tow. Today had been the first day that Kaworu had been able to leave the infirmary, so Shinji showed him around. They walked through the men's barracks—wherein Kaworu picked the bed a few feet away from Shinji's, searched inside the kitchen, and passed near the blockades on the left side of the museum's floor. Kaworu took an interest to the blockade, so they climbed on it and peeked over the top of it.

            "What's over there?" Kaworu asked. Shinji knew that it was an unsaid rule that nobody should go past the barrier, and he warned him that they shouldn't go over.

            Despite his advice, Kaworu seemed to not care.

            He hoisted himself up onto a flat part of the blockade using the grooves of one of the tables as a foothold. He sat on top, looking at Shinji expectantly. Shinji whirled his head around to see if anyone was watching, but thankfully, the hall was deserted. He turned to glare up at Kaworu.

            "Get down!" Shinji whispered. "We're not supposed to go into places we haven't blocked off!"

            “Why not?” Kaworu asked.

            Shinji furtively glanced behind him again. He was starting to have some doubts about what they were doing.

            Kaworu reached out his hand towards Shinji. For a moment, he thought about taking it, but he resisted the urge, looking down.

            “I can’t… we can’t…” Shinji muttered. He was scared of what would happen if they were caught.

            Kaworu leaned down and pouted. His face was only a few centimeters from Shinji’s.

            Shinji turned his head away, blushing and furrowing his eyebrows in frustration.

            “Let’s go,” Kaworu said.

            “No,” Shinji replied.

            “It’ll be alright, I promise.”

            “No,” Shinji repeated.

            Kaworu rested his head on his arm, thinking.

            “How about after dinner?” Kaworu asked, perking up. “We won’t have to worry that people will notice that we’re gone.”

            Shinji crossed his arms.

            “I’ll… think about it. Let’s just get to dinner.”

            Kaworu jumped down, thankfully accepting his noncommittal reply.

            Although the majority of the group was already in the dining room when they entered, Misato was still waiting to announce the meal, which quelled some of Shinji’s unease. Asuka joined them for dinner, waltzing in with Hikari like she’d never missed anything, and it lifted the spirits in the room immensely. Shinji looked at the serving table, where there was a salad with chopped pickles topped with slices of salami. He started salivating at how delicious it looked.

            After Misato declared that the meal was ready, she took out a white jar and revealed that they also had the option of adding ranch to their salads. Everyone got excited, and there was a rush to the table to get the ranch. Asuka was the first in line, and she greedily slathered her salad with the dressing and started gobbling it up even before she got to her seat.

            The salad tasted as wonderful as Shinji imagined it, and by the silence in the room, broken only for the clinking of dishes, he knew that they were all enjoying it too. He talked with Kaworu and Rei a bit as they emptied their bowls as well, but the mealtime was soon over, and everyone began to exit the dinner hall.

            Shinji had almost forgotten about his promise with Kaworu when he headed towards the men’s barracks, but he felt a light tug on his arm. He met Kaworu’s pointed gaze and felt his stomach drop.

            Kaworu started talking to him, so he tried to focus on what he was saying and not let himself feel any more anxious.

            “Let’s wait until they’re all asleep, okay? We’ll have to stay awake for a few hours but it’ll be worth it,” Kaworu said.

            “Oh,” Shinji stammered out. “Yeah.”

            Kaworu nodded and opened the door for Shinji. Shinji thanked him, going into the room and wondering what the hell he had gotten himself into.

            Shinji tried desperately to fall asleep once the lights are out, but it seemed that the dread of participating in Kaworu’s plan kept him up.

            The minutes ticked by, and before he knew it, Kaworu was tapping on his shoulder. He stood up, listening to the snores of the room and making sure that nobody started moving.

            Shinji almost couldn't believe that he was going through with this as he started walking closer and closer to the barrier, but when he faced his panic for a short while, a thrill rushed up his spine.

            Kaworu hoisted himself up onto the barrier again, steadying himself on top before he reached his hand out to Shinji. This time, Shinji took it, using it as a grip as Kaworu pulled him up.

            The two hopped over the other side of the barrier. There was smashed glass and fragments of exhibits everywhere littering the floor, and that reminded Shinji that they really shouldn't be over here. They carefully treaded over everything, trying to be as silent as they can.

            “Let’s try not to go too far,” Shinji finally said. He realized that they couldn't get lost or they wouldn't be able to find the way back. He also didn't want this expedition to go on for too long, because he was becoming increasingly tired and ready for bed. Kaworu nodded, agreeing.

            Shinji listened to the crunch under his feet, wondering what had happened to this side of the museum. Had only this part been destroyed by something, or someone? Or did the first members of this group clean up part of the mess to use the section that they're staying in right now?

            Shinji became deep in thought.

            Meanwhile, Kaworu was staring upwards.

            “Did you know that there’s another floor up there?” Kaworu asked, pulling Shinji out of his thoughts.

            Shinji followed his gaze and saw a set of stairs, which surprised him. He thought that there were only two floors of the museum.

            “I wonder what’s up there…” Kaworu said, turning to stare at Shinji with a gleam in his eye.

            Shinji didn't feel good with this.

            Kaworu noticed his hesitation, and he tried to curb his excitement.

            “We’ll just go up there, and then we’ll leave, okay? I know you’re probably tired, so we can make it fast. Yeah. We can be really quick, all right?”  Kaworu said in an assuring voice.

            “Alright, alright,” Shinji acquiesced, just wanting to get back to bed. Kaworu grabbed his hand and guided him to the stairs. Shinji sleepily allowed himself to be led.

            They stepped up the stairs, clinging to the handrail because of the limited lighting. As they made their way onto the landing and into the main room, they saw the reflections of water across the walls. Curious, Shinji and Kaworu checked behind the wall and found panels filled with moldy water lining up wall-to-wall. They found the marine exhibit, complete with empty fish tanks and pictures of seaweed and dorky divers painted on the walls. The whole exhibit seemed childish, but Shinji liked it. Kaworu broke off to search the rooms next to the exhibit, finding the hall to the astrology exhibits. He traveled through it and went into a room filled with illuminated stars and diagrams of planets. The whole wall was colored to look like the solar system. 

            “This room is beautiful…” Kaworu commented, squinting to read the comments under the stars. He tried hard to make out the letters, but he gave up and turned around to see Shinji entering the room, yawning. He laughed at how cute sleepy Shinji was.

            “All right, all right, you don’t have to remind me. Let’s go,” Kaworu teased. Shinji smiled at him.

            They retraced their steps and slowly walked back down the stairs. They took a right and found the blockade, which they then climbed over quietly.

            The men’s barrack room seemed to be in the same state as they had left it, which made Shinji glad. Kaworu got into his bed and Shinji surveyed the wall clock over his bed to try to make out the time.

            It was 11:54 p.m., which meant their journey only took about an hour. Shinji sighed in relief as he got into his bed as well and pulled the blankets over him.

            Shinji conked out after only a few minutes. Kaworu noticed his quiet snoring, which made him smile. He stared at Shinji’s sleeping face for a few seconds, admiring it. Then, he adjusted himself to go to sleep as well.

            The clock striked one, and everyone was finally asleep.


	6. A Dramatic Two Days

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An ordinary day deepens the bond between Shinji and Kaworu and Asuka and Rei tell about their older siblings. The second day brings lots of problems for the group.

                Shinji woke up to the sound of his name being called by a gentle voice. He drifted in and out of consciousness for a few seconds until his body finally started to wake up. He opened his eyes, seeing Kaworu sitting on his bed.

                “It’s seven-thirty,” Kaworu said. Shinji hummed, slowly lifting his legs and setting them on the ground. Kaworu stood up and graciously offered a hand to help him stand up. Shinji took it.

                Toji was leaning on the wall, waiting for Kensuke as he got dressed. His lips were puckered and his foot was tapping loudly on the floor. His and Shinji’s eyes locked, but Shinji turned away, still nervous about his presence. He began rummaging through the clothes folded under his bunk, and Kaworu went away to finish getting dressed as well.

                As Shinji slowly buttoned up his shirt, he remembered what he had dreamt about last night. A lot of the dream was fuzzy, but he knew Kaworu was in it. After some concentration, he began to remember the start of it. He had been back with his class on a field trip at a crowded zoo, but he stepped away to pet some of the stingrays and his group had left him behind. He had cried for a while, walked around aimlessly, and finally found Kaworu sitting at one of the tables in the zoo’s cafeteria. What they did afterwards was kind of a blur, but he had been reunited with his teacher, who scolded him for getting lost. 

                Shinji zoned off for a bit, staring at the wall. He saw Kaworu out of the corner of his eye, but he didn't recognize that Kaworu was staring at him with a strange expression. After a minute, loud knocks sounded from the door, bringing him out of his reverie and stopping everyone else’s movement.

                “Hey, are you all awake?!” Asuka yelled out from the other side. She paused, and then banged on the door once more.

                “Get up and get out here already!” Asuka shouted. The knocking ceased, leaving the boys of the room confused. Kensuke shrugged and finished pushing his arms through the sleeves of his sweatshirt. Shinji caught Toji mumbling, “What the hell was that?”

                Kaworu was the first one to finish getting ready, so he climbed up to sit on his bed, the top bunk over an empty bottom. He listened to Toji and Kensuke talk about skydiving, while only barely paying attention. He glanced at Shinji from time to time out of the corner of his eye, watching him put on his pants and fasten his belt. Shinji didn't notice him looking, but Kaworu almost wanted him to.

                 Toji remarked that he was starving, so he and Kensuke headed out the door. In a hurry, Shinji quickly put on his socks. Kaworu saw that one of them was inside out, but he didn't say anything. Shinji walked out of the room, and that’s when he looked back to see where Kaworu was. Kaworu grinned, jumping off his mattress and walking with Shinji.

                Once Toji and Kensuke made it to the wall that separated the main hall of the museum and the side section that lead to the kitchens, Asuka leapt out. She shrieked, and Toji jumped backwards, his whole body recoiling. He almost screamed, but the sound couldn't leave his mouth. Kensuke stopped in fear and started reversing his body to run to the opposite direction.

                 Someone laughed quietly behind Kaworu and Shinji, but nobody noticed. Asuka chuckled, and Kensuke halted his involuntary escape.

                “That was amazing!” Asuka grinned, bending over and slapping her leg. She pointed to Toji, who was fuming, and Kensuke, who seemed on the verge of tears.

                 Toji held up a fist, but she stood her ground, her devious smile never leaving her face.

                “That wasn’t funny!” Toji whined. He gnashed his teeth.

                 Toji's fist shook for a moment, but he ended up brushing past Asuka.

                Kensuke joined him, pushing his glasses up with his finger. His expression was cold, and he affixed Asuka with a chilly look as he walked past.

                Asuka turned her head to watch them leave behind her, and she shrugged once they entered the dining hall. She looked at Shinji and Kaworu, who were still standing a few feet away from her.

                “What did you think of that?” Asuka asked, smirking. "I sure scared them good!"

Shinji smiled, embarrassed and not willing to tell her the truth. He enjoyed their reactions, but he was still a bit shocked from the whole ordeal.

                “It was entertaining,” Kaworu supplied.

                Clapping came from behind them, and Rei strolled up, her lips curled upwards a tiny amount.

                “I enjoyed that,” Rei said. Asuka seemed to be at a loss for words.

                “But, next time," Rei continued, "invite me to do that with you too.”

                Rei kept on walking.

Asuka looked at her, dumbfounded, but her expression turned sly again.

                “Who knew that the Wonder Girl is into pranks?” Asuka questioned, with some kind of proudness. She turned to wink at Shinji, who was thinking at that moment about how glad he was that he had left a little later, and she followed into the dining room behind Rei.

                “Wow,” Shinji said.

                “Heh. It’s good that we left second, right?” Kaworu said, looking at Shinji and echoing his thoughts. Shinji wondered for a moment if he had read his mind.

                Shinji nodded, smiling, and they went to get breakfast.

                Their meal was small, but tasty: five crackers, a glass of apple juice, and half of an orange. Toji and Kensuke sat away from Asuka and Hikari, which brought the girls closer to the normal spots of Shinji, Kaworu, and Rei.

Kaworu slid Shinji half of a candy bar under the table during the meal, and they sneakily grabbed off small bites of the chocolate to eat.

                After the candy bar was gone, Shinji made a commitment to ask Kaworu where he hid his snacks.

                After breakfast, Shinji cleaned for two hours. He got on his knees in the women’s and men’s bathrooms to aggressively scrub everything with a wet dishrag and a bottle of soap. It was immensely tiring, and he began sweating just into the first half-hour. However, after the last toilet was wiped underneath, he finished feeling triumphant. Due to his exhaustion, and as a reward for his hard work, Misato allowed him to take an hour-long nap instead of heading back to do more chores.

                After his nap, Shinji tended the small garden inside the kitchen until lunch time rolled around. Twenty minutes before his chore was scheduled to be completed, Kaworu joined him, finished with his simple task of rearranging the stockroom's supplies. Shinji enjoyed his company, and he wondered how it seemed almost natural now that he and Kaworu would be spending time together.

Shinji showed Kaworu each of the plants that were growing, including the long row of healthy, hearty onion bulbs that Misato prized the most. Kaworu asked where they got the seeds, and he explained that there was an organic supermarket near the city.

 Only Asuka and Hikari were allowed to travel to the city, which was six miles away, and they were gone the entire day on those expeditions, so their choices for crops was limited to what they brought back, what survived, and what produced the most seeds.

                Shinji sat down once he finished weeding the last of the onion plants. Kaworu sat down beside him.

                “You should get tomato plants, they have lots of seeds, don’t they?” Kaworu said.

                “Hm. Yeah, I think so. I think we might have tomato seeds, let me check,” Shinji replied. He dug through the bucket that held every packet of seeds from the market, and he found a tomato pack near the bottom.

                “Huh, there’s only one packet,” Shinji said.

                “Maybe that’s why you haven’t grown a lot of them.”

                “Yeah, that makes sense,” Shinji said as he read the back of the packet. “Oh. It says that they’re best to plant during summer. It’s getting near to fall, I think…”

                “Is it really?”

                Shinji nodded.

                “Hmm. Hey, what does your group do during the winter months? How are you able to grow food?” Kaworu asked.

                “I don’t know,” Shinji said.  “I’ve only been here since… late spring, I believe.”

                “Oh, so you’re not from here?” Kaworu asked “Where are you from?”

                “Tokyo,” Shinji replied. Kaworu hunched over, affixing Shinji with an intense, empathetic look.

                “I heard that that was the area to get hit the hardest,” Kaworu said. “I’m so sorry.”

                “It’s alright. I was okay,” Shinji said, but he knew that he was lying.

Shinji was damaged by the chaos of the city, the subsequent death of his mother, and his abandonment by his father. Images of his parents flashed in his mind, and he slouched, putting his hands on his face.

                “What’s wrong?” Kaworu said, putting his hand on Shinji’s arm. He slided closer, towards Shinji. They were almost touching shoulder-to-shoulder.

                “I… I…”

                Shinji sat up gradually, but his eyes were unfocused and dark. He forced his brain to push out pictures of his father, and he thought about what he remembered about his mother instead.

                “I lost my mother right after the lurkers came,” Shinji revealed. He thought about the memories he had of her laugh, her smile, and how he used to love the hugs that she gave him. He was reminded of how much he missed her.

                “Oh my god…” Kaworu said, his voice wet, almost like he thought it was his fault.

Kaworu started rubbing Shinji’s arm. Shinji was unable to lock eyes with Kaworu, but he was glad for the gesture. He focused on the touch, on reality, to calm himself down. He finally looked at Kaworu, whose eyes were sparkling.

                (Almost) in a loving way, Kaworu took his hand and wiped the tears away from under Shinji’s eyes. Shinji’s mouth opened a tiny bit to offer a smile, which Kaworu returned.

                A moment passed between them, and Shinji found his composure again. After his mind was clearer, he began to want to know what Kaworu’s backstory was.

                “What happened to you, Kaworu?” Shinji asked.

                “Me? Oh, well… I lost most of my… guardians in the chaos when the lurkers came to Tokyo, but I was…” Kaworu paused for a few seconds, guilt flashing on his face. “…actually... glad that they died.”

                “Really?” Shinji replied, stunned.

                “I don't mean... that… well… they were bad people, Shinji.” Kaworu turned to him. He bit his lip. He almost seemed to plead with his body language for Shinji to understand what he wanted to say.

                “They were men that monitored me… I grew up in a... sort-of foster care home, but I wasn’t treated well…”

                Kaworu didn’t elaborate, and even though Shinji wanted him to explain what he meant, he respectfully stayed silent.

                “I had my first taste of freedom once I was forced to run away… It’s actually been really fun for me, being on my own…” Kaworu turned to Shinji, grabbing Shinji’s hand and squeezing it lightly. “Plus, I wouldn’t have been able to meet you if everything hadn't happened.”

                “Well, yeah, that’s good,” Shinji agreed. His cheeks feel rosy, but he felt a pang of jealousy that Kaworu was able to see the bright side of things.

       Shinji began to stand up, and as if on cue, the clock in the room started to chime, signaling the new hour.

                “Let’s go to lunch,” Shinji said. He offered Kaworu his hand. Kaworu looked surprised for a moment, but he took it, giggling.

                Lunch was uneventful, and again, a meager meal. Asuka and Hikari sat even closer to them, and Hikari included herself in some of their conversation when their topic changed to animals. Apparently, she wanted to be a veterinarian when she was a child, so she was able to answer many of the questions they had about different animals.

                “So, you’re sure that salamanders aren’t lizards?” Kaworu asked, smiling teasingly at Hikari, who was exasperated.

                “No, they aren’t lizards!” Hikari huffed. “How many times do I have to tell you, lizards are _reptiles_ and salamanders are _amphibians_.”

                “Oh, I get it… But, they both look the same, so how aren't the same species?” Kaworu questioned. “If scientists can’t tell them apart, then how do we know if a salamander isn’t a lizard and a lizard isn’t really a salamander?”

                “Well…” Hikari looked lost. She looked to Shinji for backup, but Shinji didn't know what to say. She started talking again.

                 "Um… I think that…”

                “Lizards have claws,” Rei said, glancing at Hikari.

                “Oh!! Yeah, Kaworu, they have claws!” Hikari looked at Kaworu with a proud smirk.

                “Hm…. Okay, I understand now.”

                “Good,” Hikari said. Shinji breathed a sigh of relief now that their lengthy debate is finally over with.

                “But…” Kaworu started. “I have one more thing bugging me. If a snake grew legs, then would it be counted as a salamander or a lizard?”

                “Okay, no, no more,” Shinji said. He grabbed Kaworu’s wrist firmly and started dragging him out of the room. He missed the content look that Kaworu gave him, for he was more preoccupied with stopping any more theoretical debates before they happened.

                Shinji detached from Kaworu once they entered the empty men’s barracks. Shinji fixed him with a half-glare, and Kaworu threw up his hands in apology. Shinji rolled his eyes and walked to his bed. He looked at Kaworu and motioned for him to sit next to him.

                “So, what are we going to do?” Kaworu asked.

                “We’re going to talk,” Shinji answered.

                “Oh.”

                Kaworu looked cautiously at Shinji like he expected something terrible to happen.

                “Relax,” Shinji said. “I wanted to ask you where you store your food."

                “Oh. I have it under one of the floorboards in the storage room. I’ve also taken part of the rest of my supplies and hid them under there, as a precaution.”

                “As a precaution for what?” Shinji asked.

                “Well, if this place gets raided by bandits that steal the supplies, then at least there'll be some things that they won't be able to find.”

                “I see. That’s actually… really smart,” Shinji replied. He wondered how he didn’t think of that.

                “What are you doing until dinner?” Kaworu asked.

                “I’m going to help with Misato in the kitchen,” Shinji said. “What about you?”

                “I’m not assigned to do anything, but I’m going to stay in the infirmary to give Sakura company. I know that she spends a lot of time there alone or only with her brother,” Kaworu answered.

                “Ah, okay…” Shinji trailed off. He felt bad for Sakura, and he wished that he could come with him, too.

                “Plus,” Kaworu continued, “She’s fun to talk to. She’s a few years younger than us, so she doesn’t know much about history or science, but she’s really good at math. Did you know that?”

                “No,” Shinji muttered.

                “Yeah, she can do these really difficult equations in her head. It’s so cool!” Kaworu smiled.

                Shinji heard footsteps close by the door, so he stood up. He didn't want to be seen by others as slacking, so he hastened to go the kitchens.

                “Talk to you later, Kaworu.”

                “See ya.”

                Before Shinji made his way to the kitchens, he went into the storage room to find Kaworu’s stash. He tried pulling and pushing on some of the panels of the floor, but he couldn't find the right one. He tried a few more spots in the floor and gave up, knowing that he should book it to the kitchens so he wasn’t later than he was to help Misato.

                Misato was chopping up carrots when he came in the kitchen. She glanced up at the clock and looked back down. Her face was blank, which made Shinji unable to read how she felt about his tardiness.

                “It’s 1:18,” Misato commented. She didn't say anything more, but Shinji felt her gaze when he turned around.

                “I-I’m sorry,” Shinji stammered out, unable to stop himself. “I was with Kaworu in the barracks, and we lost track of time.”

                “Shinji.”

                He turned around to face her and sees her towering overhead. He gulped.

                “Do you want to know what my grandmother told me?” Misato asked.

                “Y-yeah?”

                She was silent for a moment, staring at him until he felt his skin crawling. He swore he didn't see her blink for at least a minute.

                “Never admit guilt!” Misato finally said with a smile, turning back around. Shinji was finally able to take a breath, which he promptly did.

                “You see, my grandmother was a cop. And, she told me how to see the guiltiness in people’s faces—to read their body language that betrays what they’re really thinking!” Misato elaborated.

                Shinji just wanted her to give him a punishment. The suspense was killing him, and his anxiety was compounding as the seconds ticked away.

                “However, I also learned how to tell if people regretted what they had done. I’m able to see if the person really did something bad on accident, or if they are hiding behind a façade to get out of trouble.”

                She began slicing up the carrots again. The clack of the cutting board echoed throughout the room.

                “So, I’m not mad, Shinji.”

                She turned to face him again. She rested her back on the counter nonchalantly, her arms in a half-shrug.

                “I know that you weren’t late on purpose, and honestly, I’m glad that you and Kaworu are becoming good friends,” she said. Shinji felt incredibly relieved. He forced himself to take deep breaths and focus on anything but his pounding heartbeat.

                “I thought for a while that you weren’t going to find any friends here,” Misato murmured. She popped a slice of carrot into her mouth and slid the rest of the pieces into a large pot. She then grabbed three packages of noodles and handed them to Shinji.

                “Can you open these and put these in a pot of water?” Misato asked.

                Shinji nodded. He ripped open the packages, careful to not let any of the strands of broken-off noodles touch the floor. He took out the spice packets inside the packages, but noticed that they aren’t all of the same flavor.

                “Hey, Misato. There’s two different flavors in the noodle packages, chicken and seafood. Which one do you want to use?" Shinji asked.

                “Oh… Hm…” Misato pondered, looking at the packages. She turned to Shinji with an idea.

                “How about you pick which flavor we should have? It’s your choice- chicken or seafood?”

                “Oh! Um… Um…” Shinji fidgeted. Trying not to overthink or overanalyze the decision lest his brain shut down, he picked his personal favorite.

                “Um… can we have… seafood?” Shinji asked, subconsciously expecting to be reprimanded that he picked the wrong flavor.

                “Okay!” Misato said, simply taking the chicken packets and placing them in the cupboards above the sink.

                Shinji turned around and gets back to his duty. He looked longingly at the taps over the sink, wishing that he could just turn them to get water, but they had long dried out. Instead, he had to go and fetch one of the pails of rainwater that they used for cooking. He opened the fridge door and took one of the pails out. He poured half of it into the large pot next to Misato. She added in more vegetables, including rings of onions and brown beans, to the soup. She grabbed out of her jacket pocket a cartridge of matches, and she used a lit one to light a fire under the pot, where a pile of sticks and strips of wood lay underneath.

                The soup took over an hour to cook fully, mostly because the process of boiling the water was a slow, demanding one. With nothing to do, and the fire finally roaring, Misato and Shinji sat on the counters, staring at the pot.

                “Every single day I wish that I had my old oven. Every single day,” Misato remarked, sighing.

                It was silent for a few minutes. They both watched the pot and took breaks to stare out the small window of the kitchen. Then, Shinji felt like he wanted to say something.

                “After the apocalypse is over, you know what I want to do?” Shinji asked.

                “What?”

                “I want to eat all of the snacks I miss. I’m going to eat cake until I feel sick.”

                “Oh, that would be cool,” Misato said. “You know what I’m gonna do?”

                “What?”

                “I’m gonna eat all the candy I want and smoke ten packages of cigarretes, and then I’m going to go to my ex-boyfriend’s house and throw eggs at it,” Misato said, clenching her fist.

                What she said freaked Shinji out, but he chalked it up to not knowing much about Misato.

                After the soup was boiling heavily, and the noodles turned soft, Misato grabbed an oven mitt and took the pot off the stovetop. Shinji opened the packages of seasoning and mixed them in. He noticed specks of seaweed floating at the top of the pot, and he became eager to try the soup. He loved seaweed.

                They called everyone to dinner at 5:30, but it isn’t until 6 that everybody was finally in the dining room. Shinji realized that Misato must have a lot of patience to be waiting on people for long periods of time every day.

                Misato allowed Shinji the first spot in line, and he gathered his soup and cookies.

                Shinji excitedly took a spoonful of the soup, but he was disappointed when he tasted that the soup was pretty watered-down. He did see bits of shrimp in his food, though, and found the seaweed, which made it less of a loss. He tried the cookies, which he found hard and almost-stale, but they were sweet nonetheless. They were the peanut-butter kind.

                Dinner was uneventful as a whole. Toji tried to put a booger in Asuka’s soup, but Hikari noticed his attempt and knocked his hand away.

                Kaworu was strangely quiet, but he did contribute little snippets to their conversation. The topic of this meal was siblings. Shinji and Kaworu had little to say about their respective families, both being only children, and Kaworu even admitted that he had no idea who his mother was. Asuka ranted about her older half-sister who lived in Germany, and how she used to give Asuka misinformation when she was younger and, and how she told her not to tell the people that she knew about what she had heard.

                “One time, she even told me that people turn gay if they hug their parents too much, and of course I didn’t know what being gay was until much later, but I thought that “turning gay” wasn’t something good, so I told the other girls in my third grade class to not hug their mothers and fathers! How mean was that?!” Asuka said.

                “Gosh…” Hikari replied, looking at Asuka with a worried face. “You’re all right, though? She didn’t make you get bullied or hurt when you were younger, right?”

                “Yeah, I’m fine,” Asuka answered, giving Hikari a reassuring kiss on her cheek. “I may have learned that I was gay faster, but that isn’t really a bad thing, yeah?”

                Hikari grinned.

                “I had a sister that liked to set things on fire,” Rei said.

                “W-what the heck?? Are you serious?!” Asuka asked, staring at Rei.

                “Yeah. She almost died twice.”

                It took a second, but Shinji figured out that Rei seemed under the impression that her sister wasn’t that unusual.

                “That’s not normal, Rei…” Shinji said. Rei shrugged in response.

                “Eh. Whatever. She’s probably dead, now.” Rei said. She took a drink of water and finished her train of thought.

                “She was nice when it was just me and her, but she was cruel when she was with her friends. I think she was part of a gang…”

                “Ooooh-kay….” Asuka said, clenching her teeth and looking away.

                “Me and Hikari are going to go kiss or something, bye losers.”

                Asuka flashed a piece sign and stood, going to leave. Hikari rolled her eyes but silently followed with her out the door. Before the door closed, Shinji thought that he heard Hikari chiding Asuka, but he wasn’t sure.

                “I’m tired, so I’m leaving as well, too,” Shinji said, standing up. He gathered his dishes and the ones that Hikari and Asuka left behind, and placed them in the washbin. He was serious about his fatigue, so he went to the barracks and went to bed. When he laid on his mattress, he felt an uncomfortable lump on his arm, and he found a squashed muffin hidden under both of his blankets.

                Shinji didn't stop watching the door until he completed eating his muffin, which tasted delicious. It had little bits of chocolate in it. He felt a little spoiled because Kaworu gave him so many treats.

                He hid the wrapper under his stack of pants, not feeling motivated enough to throw it away properly. He reminded himself to do so in the morning, and he laid down and went to sleep.

 

\--- 

                Another day came at Shinji, and before he knew it, he was being shaken awake. Kensuke called out for him to wake up, and once he blinked and his vision focused, he saw Kensuke’s glasses and his scraggly hair.

                “Hey, get up. You need to get up, now.”

                Shinji’s confused at the rush, and his body was urging him to get more sleep. But, he heard the muffled sounds of gunshots, and that abruptly urged him awake.

                “We need to go on lockdown, right now, so come on,” Kensuke whispered. He moved left to begin waking Hyuga, and Shinji saw that Kaworu was being roughly woken by Toji on the other part of the room. He forewent changing and getting ready to run out with the other men out the door and quietly to the infirmary, where almost everyone else was hiding inside.

                After Misato rushed into the room, they locked the door. Shinji helped Aoba to block the door by setting crates in front of it, and it wasn’t until they had put the final crate on top that Misato asked where Rei was.

                “Oh, shit.” Kensuke swore.

                Shinji whirled around the room, thinking that she would have to be hidden in the corner reading a novel or maybe standing in the back like she did sometimes, but her unmistakable blue hair was nowhere.

                Holy shit, they really did leave Rei behind.

                “Didn’t you see her?!” Misato turned to Asuka and Hikari. Asuka shrugged, but she seemed just as concerned as Hikari, who had broken into a cold sweat. Asuka began to explain what happened.

                “We saw her get into bed when we did, but she wasn’t there when we woke up. We forgot to look for her in our rush to get here-”

                She cut herself off when they all heard the sound of the basement door above them creaking open. Then came the sound of steps on the stairs next to the room. Shinji found Kaworu, who was sitting on Sakura’s bed with Toji and looking grim, and sat down next to him. Although he knew that Kaworu couldn't read his mind, Kaworu hugged him when he felt like he needed someone to be close to him right now.

                It was silent for a few seconds, but someone knocked on the door a few times. Everyone inside the room was terrified. Many of them were stiff, and some even tried to silence their breathing by putting their hands over their mouths.

                “Hey, is there anyone in here?” An unfamiliar voice called out. It sounded female, and the person tried to twist the knob on the door. However, they were unsuccessful.

                The woman then tried kicking the door in, but stopped after a minute.

                “Fuck it,” they said.

                They fired their gun at the door, and some of the bullets pierced through the metal. Luckily, nobody was hit, but the people standing near the center of the room crouched down and snuck to the sides to avoid any bullets that could come their way.

                A few more shots hit the door, but thankfully, they missed the center of the lock mechanism. The person, clearly agitated, started kicking the door again. They seemed to be working themselves up in a fit of rage, as the kicking escalated and continued for another few moments.

                Another set of shoes came running down the stairs, and the kicking stopped.

                “Hey, let’s go. We found someone, but we think that these people might be back soon,” A male voice said.

                “Hmph. I think that there’s something inside here, but I don’t know how the fuck to get in!” The female voice said back.

                “Did you shoot the lock?”

                “I dunno? I have no idea where the hell the lock is!”

                “Well, maybe Ramiel knows.”

                “Then go get him!"

                Shinji realized as he listened to them bicker that the female voice outside sounded eerily familiar. He couldn't place where he had heard it before, but it unnerved him either way.

                Footsteps ran up the stairs, and they came down with another person behind them.

                “What’s the problem?” A new male voice asked.

                “It’s this dumb door, it won't open! But, I’m over it. What did you get?” The female voice asked, suddenly showing interest in the new person.

                “Well, I told Adam that we should have brought our packs, and I was right. There’s a lot of shit piled up in one of the rooms, but I only got this much.”

                “Huh. Let me go see what’s there.” The woman said. She presumably walked up the steps, and the other two people followed her.

                They all stayed in the bunker room for the next two hours, but the people didn't return. After they made their way back upstairs, and after frantic searching, they found that Rei had vanished. Most of them assumed that the people had her, judging by what they had said before.

                Many of them thought she was dead.

                All jobs were suspended for the day, which came at not too much of a surprise. At brunch, Misato finally gave everyone the bad news. Their storage room had been found; a lot of the medicine and food had been stolen, along with one of their last pistols. To make matters worse, the group of lurkers outside had grown bigger and more dangerous once they had heard the gunshots, and they all seem to be surrounded on every side of the building.

                “They will most likely come here again,” Misato said, referring to the people from before. “So, after the meal is finished, we all have the duty of moving our valuables and supplies down into the lockdown room, where they will be safer. Hopefully, we will hear from Rei soon, but in the meantime, let’s pray for her safety.”

                “Will we have to leave the museum?” Hikari asked. Misato faltered for a moment.

                “I think so,” Misato replied, sadly.

                Toji and Kensuke murmured behind Shinji. Kaworu crossed his arms, looking at the ground and shaking his head.

                Misato then allowed them to eat, which they all did in near-silence. Everyone was in their thoughts, and Shinji missed Rei’s presence as he stared at her usual spot.

                They worked on bringing all the remaining supplies in the stockroom, with some of the extra beds, and that took them nearly four hours. Misato left the bare necessities in the kitchen, which Shinji saw has only about two days-worth of meals left. Everything else had been taken.

                Shinji had gotten so used to living with all these people in the museum that he was in shock. He couldn't believe that their time together here would soon be over.

                They had a really good system going, and other than Asuka’s bite, nothing too bad had happened to them yet.

                After a large dinner brought by the lack of a decent breakfast for everyone, they all retired for the night. Aoba called Kaworu to the infirmary so he could cut off the cast on his arm. Aoba warned Kaworu not to move the arm too much or put weight on it, and he left him to go to bed as well. Kaworu was able to move his fingers, wrist, and his arm a bit to the side, which made him happy. He stayed for a few minutes to see how Sakura was doing, and he waved at her as he left the room.

                Kaworu went into the men’s barracks, where Shinji, Toji, Kensuke, and Hyuga were getting ready for bed.

                Shinji seemed to be finished first, and he laid on his back on the bed, staring at the ceiling.

                Kaworu wanted to lay next to him, but he sat on his bed instead.

                “Hey.” Kaworu said.

                “Hey.” Shinji said back. There was a pause.

                “This sucks,” Shinji said, rolling on his side to face Kaworu.

                “I know. It really does,” Kaworu agreed. He looked at the other men in the room.

                “It’s probably even worse for them, though, because they’ve been here all this time,” Kaworu's voice dropped to a whisper. Shinji nodded. He knew the feeling of being uprooted from a familiar place into the unknown, so he felt for them.

                “Well, at least we can help them,” Shinji remarked.

                “Yes, we can do that. They’ll probably need a lot of help,” Kaworu said.

                Kaworu retreated back to his bunk and Shinji pulled the blankets over his stomach.

                Someone flicked the lights off, and they all stayed awake for a while until sleep took them from their thoughts, one by one.


	7. Mari's Arrival

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shinji and Kaworu confess their love to each other. Toji and Kensuke don't like the two's relationship. Mari meets up with everyone, and Shinji kills a spider.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the long break between the chapters! I've been working pretty steadily on this one, which came to be much, much longer than the other chapters... Whoops!  
> Also the rating is going up due to this chapter, which has m/m sex, so... yeah!

  
          The leather against Shinji’s back stuck annoyingly to his skin as he adjusted in his seat. Every time he moved, the leather would cling to him and finally fall off with a loud and embarrassing _shlick_ sound. He tried to get into a more comfortable position, but he had to loosen the seatbelt, which took some pulling to get down.

           It was really hot inside the car, and after sitting there for a half hour, he couldn’t stand it anymore. Shinji was tempted to ignore his fears of making a bad impression to his friend’s parents and tell them to turn on the air conditioner, or at least roll up his windows. He was ready to speak and ask the woman driving, but he saw that she was taking a sip of her soda. He waited until she had finished greedily gulping the drink down, but his courage failed at the last moment, and the words wouldn’t leave his mouth. After a few seconds, he turned back to look outside, his mouth shut.

          Shinji focused on the markers on the sides of the highway, judging how far he was to his house. He saw that they were finally getting off the highway and onto the roads near his home. Knowing that he would have to be in the car for at least ten more minutes, but glad that they were close, he endured the sweltering haze inside. He really hated the summer heat. He wished that autumn would come soon.

          With nothing much else to do, for his friend had fallen asleep in the seat next to him, he stared at the scenery outside. They passed a basketball court, where children were playing, but he wasn’t paying too much attention to them.

          Shinji felt a nudge on his arm. He looked to meet his friend’s eyes.

          “How did you enjoy the movie?” His friend asked, his eyes half-lidded in fatigue.

          Shinji smiled. He was ready to say that he enjoyed it, but after a brief moment of thinking, he realized that he had no idea what movie he was talking about. Had they just went to watch a movie? Shinji couldn’t remember.

          Had he really forgotten what they had seen? What was going on?

          “I liked it,” Shinji said, hiding his guilt behind a smile.

          His friend copied his smile and settled back down, his eyes closing shut once more.

          Shinji's mind began working furiously. His friend’s family must have paid for his ticket to this movie. He had no idea how his family could have afforded a movie ticket, which would have been expensive in the summer, when all kids were on summer vacation.

          In return for his friend’s gift, he had forgotten everything about the movie.

          God, why was he such an ungrateful idiot. He cursed himself again for being such a fuckup, and punished himself by pinching his thigh. He endured the pain until he saw the first drop of blood leak out, and he moved his hand away, leaving two half-moons indented in his skin.

          He looked at the car’s front mirror. Staring back was a scrawny boy with dark circles under his eyes. He blinked, and his reflection did the same.

          Out of nowhere, he noticed that the car’s interior seemed more darkly lit. He glanced outside again, seeing that the sun had already set. The stars were visible in the sky, twinkling nearby a full moon.

          Confused, he checked the clock on front of the car’s dashboard. It read only five thirty-one p.m. The sun had been high in the sky a few minutes ago. He was sure of that. Then, how was this possible?

          Shinji turned to the adults in the front seats to ask what had happened. However, their seats were empty. Shinji gasped.

          “Shinji, are you alright?” Kaworu’s voice sounded from the seat next to him. Shinji whirled around to look at Kaworu, his mouth agape in shock. His friend, who had been sitting in Kaworu’s place, was nowhere to be seen. Shinji panicked, and looked all around the car. Finding nobody but Kaworu, he fixed his worried gaze on him.

          “Kaworu…?” Shinji said, his voice shaking. In response, Kaworu lifted one of his pale hands and placed it on Shinji’s forehead. He smiled. Shinji moved back a bit, unsure about what he felt about the touch.

          “Wh-where did they all go?” Shinji asked, feeling fear creep into his mind. He heard the turn signal click and turn off after a few seconds, and a glance up front showed that the car was still driving, even with nobody in the front seat.

          He was alone in the car with Kaworu. He looked all around, panicking. Kaworu tried again to reach up a hand, but Shinji smacked it away.

          “W-why are you here? How did you get here, Kaworu?” Shinji asked forcefully.

          “It’s alright, Shinji,” Kaworu replied softly. “I won’t let anything hurt you anymore.”

          “Huh???” Shinji said. Kaworu tried once more to touch him. Shinji relented, and let Kaworu’s hand rest on his shoulder. Kaworu rubbed it, even as they tensed without Shinji’s knowing.

          “Breathe, Shinji,” Kaworu said. Shinji noticed that his heart was beating quickly, and he counted to five as he inhaled and exhaled his next few breaths. Kaworu’s palm slowly slid up, over his shoulder and neck, to cup his cheek. Shinji squirmed, staring at Kaworu with wide eyes.

          His face was gently rubbed by Kaworu’s thumb, which made him blush. He tried looking into Kaworu’s eyes, but Kaworu was staring at his hand.

          “What’s going on, Kaworu, I don’t understand…” Shinji said, desperately wanting an explanation.

          Kaworu was silent. He frowned, looking around Shinji to stare at the moon.

          With a sudden movement, even though the car was still in motion, Kaworu unbuckled his seatbelt to slide to Shinji in the backseat. He hugged Shinji, squeezing his arms around Shinji’s back.

          Shinji’s face was pressed into Kaworu’s neck. He smelled tulips and the faint scent of chocolate. He relaxed in Kaworu’s hold, beginning to like the feel of Kaworu’s body around him. He wrapped his arms around Kaworu’s back and gripped the light fabric of Kaworu’s school uniform.

          Kaworu started whispering sweetly to Shinji as he threading his fingers in the back of Shinji’s hair.            

          “You are the most beautiful person in the world. You deserve so much love.” Shinji stiffened, his brain taking a minute to register what Kaworu was saying. He flushed at his compliments.

          Kaworu pulled back from Shinji, ending their embrace. He moved his head so that they were finally staring into each other’s eyes. His face was close, a few centimeters away from Shinji’s.

          “I want to protect you, Shinji, and give you the happiness you need so that you never feel pain again,” Kaworu said. Shinji’s eyebrows turned up. This was sounding a lot like a confession of love, no, more than that even. Kaworu was acting like he wanted to marry him.

          Did Kaworu love him? And furthermore, did he love Kaworu?

          “You’ve felt hurt for a long time,” Kaworu continued, “and that’s made your heart delicate like glass. I’m so sorry.”

          Shinji’s heart began to open, and it soaked up Kaworu’s every word like it was a lullaby from heaven. Kaworu was giving him such nice words. It was unbelievably uplifting, both to his damaged mental state and to his self-image. He wanted to hear more.

          “In other words, I love you,” Kaworu said. He smiled, watching Shinji’s eyes gloss over. Tears of happiness flowed from his sockets, leaving tear tracks that ran down his face. Kaworu wiped them away with his fingers. Shinji smiled a genuine smile, and he didn’t move away when Kaworu leaned forwards to kiss him.

          He kissed Kaworu back, relishing in the light touches of their mouths.

          Shinji felt like he was in heaven. In a flash, he realized that he wanted Kaworu’s love. He loved Kaworu.

          I love Kaworu. I love Kaworu. I love Kaworu.

          As their kiss deepened, Shinji knew that he wanted to feel Kaworu more. He took the initiative to rub his hands on Kaworu’s hips. He didn’t feel brave enough to try to slip his hands into Kaworu’s pants. Kaworu stalled for a moment but responded by kissing Shinji on his forehead, cheeks, and nose.

          Shinji’s hands slid down Kaworu’s, which were laying on his sides. He interlocked his fingers with Kaworu’s. Kaworu pulled away a little from their kiss, looking at Shinji like he was the best thing in the world.

          “What do you think of me?” Kaworu asked. He rested his forehead against Shinji’s.

          “I think… well, yes, I… I-I love you,” Shinji answered nervously. He squeezed Kaworu’s hand.

          Kaworu rubbed his nose against Shinji’s, giving him an Eskimo kiss.

          “I love you, too, Shinji.” Kaworu said. He rested his head on Shinji’s shoulder, and Shinji snuggled into him. Shinji played with Kaworu’s hair, twisting the white strands around his finger. He made some of them stick up with static electricity, but he smoothed them down.

          Kaworu kissed his neck, which tickled. Shinji laughed. Kaworu peppered his neck with more kisses. Shinji giggled again.

          Kaworu started speaking, before he was cut off.

          “I believ-”

          Shinji woke suddenly from his dream with a small start. He sat up, blinking.

          Shinji stayed there for a minute, still having an emotional high off the hormones that had come from the dream. As he adjusted back to reality, he frowned. Sadly, his wonderful dream was over.

          Flashes of dream memories of Kaworu touching him made his cheeks turn pink. He felt happiness when Kaworu told him he loved him. God, he was so gay, Shinji thought.

          After his night vision made it possible to see shapes, he saw that almost all of his blankets were falling off his bed. Shinji reached over to grab them, lamenting over his cold legs. He hated when he kicked his covers off.

          He looked down and noticed that there was a bulge in his pajama pants. He pulled them down to his boxers to check, and saw that they were tented by his half-hard erection.

          He weighed his options. It was the middle of the night, and if he was quiet…

          Nah, it wasn’t worth it. His head was fuzzy, as he was still exhausted. He sighed, and laid back down to get more sleep.

          He laid awake for a few minutes. As much as he tried, he couldn’t help himself from wondering how Kaworu’s touch would feel like. He wished that Kaworu would tell him that he loved him in real life, he thought sullenly.

          He closed his eyes, concentrating on using the steady snores of the others to lull himself to sleep.

          Before he could dive back into sleep, he heard a low noise from behind him. For a minute, he half-believed that he had imagined that weird sound. Shinji heard it once again, though, as a break in the others’ snoring let it fill the room for a quick moment. He quieted his breathing, straining to hear. Other than the rustling of bed sheets, it was once again silent.

          He heard the sound again, and he faced back around so that he could look for the source of it. Was it… moaning?

          Kaworu’s blurry form moved in the darkness, and the groan happened again.

          Shinji pushed off his blankets. He walked close to Kaworu, his feet pitter pattering on the floor. He wanted to see if Kaworu was the source of the noises.

          His imagination ran wild. He wondered if Kaworu was having a nightmare, or if he was hurt. He knew that he sometimes woke up with bruises on his legs, when he kicked his bedpost in sleep. He could go get a Band-Aid for Kaworu if he needed one.

          Shinji stood on his tiptoes and peeked at Kaworu.

          He could hear Kaworu’s breathing, but his view was restricted. He pushed himself up as high as he could, grunting.

          He seemed to have woken him, for Kaworu opened his eyes.

          "Hi, are you okay?” Shinji whispered. Kaworu inhaled, his face flushed.

          “Shinji?... Y-yeah. I’m good,” Kaworu answered. He sat up a bit to pull his covers towards him. Shinji used the bottom bunk to lift himself upwards so that he could see Kaworu fully.

          “Were you having a bad dream?” Shinji asked. Kaworu’s mouth was tight, and he seemed to be sweating. Shinji started to feel worried for him.

          “No, nothing like that. I just was hot, that’s all,” Kaworu said, smiling. He fanned his face, and turned back towards Shinji. Shinji wondered if he was really all right…

          “Why, did you have a nightmare?” Kaworu asked, referring to his question.

          Shinji waved his hands, smiling reassuringly.

          “No, no, I’m fine! I j-just heard you moaning, and I wanted to see if you were all right,” He explained.

          Kaworu blushed unexpectedly.

          “Thank you, Shinji. It was nice of you to come check on me,” Kaworu said. Shinji smiled.

          Neither of them said anything for a few moments. Shinji awkwardly hovered near him. Kaworu shifted his legs, and his blankets fell from his chest.

          He wasn’t wearing a shirt. Shinji stared for a second at his chest and forced himself to look away, embarrassed yet kind of aroused. He wondered if Kaworu slept without any clothes on.

          “Are you wearing anything?” Shinji blurted out. The second after his question left his mouth, he realized what he had said. Was his mind on autopilot or something?! Did he just ask if Kaworu was fucking naked???

          Kaworu stared at him, surprised. His mouth opened and closed itself a few times. Shinji let down his head. Kaworu was silent, and Shinji was about to excuse himself when Kaworu began to speak again.

          “No. N-no. I’m wearing pants, no worry,” Kaworu stammered out. Shinji nodded again, sneaking a glance up. Kaworu’s face was red, like his.

          “If you wanna come up here, you can,” Kaworu offered, not looking directly at Shinji. He made no move to cover up his chest.

          Shinji struggled inwardly for a bit but decided to go for it. He stepped off the bottom mattress and walked over, climbing the ladder into Kaworu’s bunk. When he came to the top, Kaworu moved to make room for him. The blankets fell to the side, off his waist.

          Shinji witnessed Kaworu wearing pajama pants. However, the front slit of them was open, and Kaworu’s dick was hanging out. It pointed towards the ceiling, fully erect.

          ‘Oh god.’ Shinji thought. He swallowed violently, his fist coming up to his mouth.

          His first thought was that he wanted to touch it, and he realized that his own privates were responding positively to his idea.

          Kaworu looked at where he was staring, and he stiffened. He thrust his hands towards the edge of the blankets, and he quickly pulled them up to hide his erection.

          Shinji flinched after Kaworu started moving, and he shifted away. He purposely looked away, but his mind continued to picture Kaworu’s penis. It was so big, over an inch longer than his!

          He wanted the arousing image to go away, but no matter how he tried, he couldn’t think of anything else.

          “Shinji, I… well… I’m sorry you had to see that,” Kaworu apologized.

          Shinji nodded robotically, still focusing intently on one of the rug patterns below as if it could tell him the secrets of the universe. He didn’t even know that penises could bend that far.

          Kaworu didn’t know what to say to make this situation any less mortifying. He cried inwardly, wondering how he could fix this.

          Trying to be nonchalant, Kaworu laughed.

          “Sorry again, Shinji, I just had to do this, you know? What we all do… us boys… haha… ha.”

          Shinji didn’t give an answer back. Kaworu wished he would say something. He started getting worried. He didn’t see how Shinji was nearly drooling next to him.

          “Yep… Ha… ha…” Kaworu finished awkwardly. He let a few moments pass before he let his façade drop.

          “Are you okay, Shinji?” He asked. He leaned forward, still tightly holding the blanket up with his hands.

          “Yeah,” Shinji answered. He was still staring down, though.

          Kaworu frowned, thinking that he messed up big-time. Then, Shinji turned to him abruptly. Kaworu only saw the light in his eyes before Shinji took his face in his hands and kissed him.

          Kaworu felt time stop as he registered Shinji’s lips on his own. It was hard to believe that this wasn’t a continuation of his fantasies. He brought his hands up to Shinji’s shoulders to make sure that he was real.

          Shinji was laughing inside, thinking about how this felt like déjà vu. He had just done this a few minutes before, with another Kaworu. Or, with the same Kaworu. Or… whatever, with Kaworu.

          Kaworu’s lips were a bit drier than he figured, but his lips were just as soft.

          Kaworu moved back, licking his chapped lips, before coming back and starting to move them against Shinji’s. He leaned inelegantly towards Shinji, straining to get his body closer.

          Shinji broke the kiss, openly gazing at Kaworu’s chest. He palmed the erection that was growing in his pants. Kaworu watched him fascinatedly as he did so, his own dick twitching.

          Remembering that they weren’t alone, Shinji did a once-over over the room to see if anyone had woken up. The snoring hadn’t stopped, but he was cautious either way. He deduced that nobody had awoken from everyone’s closed eyes, and he pulled off his pants.

          Kaworu hastened to do the same. Shinji pulled his t-shirt over his head, leaving him only in his briefs. He pulled out his penis and stroked it. He grasped it in his hand and stroked slowly up and down a few times, feeling the pleasure spikes. Kaworu let out a haggard breath, and Shinji held up a finger to remind him to quiet down. Kaworu nodded shakily, liking how Shinji was in control.

          Kaworu ran his hands eagerly around Shinji’s chest and belly. Shinji reached around him to take off his socks, and he pushed his clothes to the edge of Kaworu’s bed with his foot.

          Kaworu came forward and praised Shinji’s belly, kissing random patches of the skin. Kaworu tried to kiss his bellybutton, but Shinji stopped him with a hand, knowing that he was incredibly ticklish there. Kaworu stuck out his tongue playfully and came back up to kiss Shinji. He tweaked Shinji’s nipples a bit, which surprised Shinji. However, his body seemed to enjoy the light pain, so he allowed it to happen until they were perked up and swollen. Shinji then sat up and unbuttoned his shirt, throwing it uncaringly in the general direction where his pants were.

          Kaworu pushed his erection back inside his boxers so that he could take the undergarment off. After becoming fully unclothed, he slid his hand down to Shinji’s briefs. With Shinji’s consent, he rubbed the front, feeling the outline of Shinji’s penis. Shinji let out a shaky breath, hoping for more.

          Kaworu pushed Shinji’s underwear down, and Shinji finished his job by wiggling his legs until they were off. He reached for Kaworu’s erection.

          He played with the head of Kaworu’s penis, thumbing the slit and rubbing the sensitive skin under his foreskin. Kaworu gasped. He was already sufficiently stimulated from his earlier masturbating. His legs were shaking fiercely from the overwhelming pleasure, and his eyes were squeezed shut.

          Kaworu moved forwards so that he was nearly sitting on Shinji’s lap. He thrusted forwards so that their erections could touch.

          Shinji steadily stroked Kaworu’s shaft, increasing the speed of his hand. He rolled Kaworu’s testicles in his other hand. Kaworu opened his legs wider.

          “Shinji! Oh- oh no,” Kaworu said, forcing his words out. He bent his body backwards. Shinji could see the muscles in his legs twitching sporadically. His position looked quite uncomfortable, so Shinji slowed his hand.

          “You can lay down of you want,” Shinji said. Kaworu opened his eyes, looking a little frustrated, but he nodded. Shinji let go of his dick, and Kaworu rested his back on the wall. He flinched as his bare back felt the cold surface. Shinji handed him one of his pillows, which Kaworu received thankfully. He placed the pillow behind him.

          Shinji sat down in front of him, taking his erection in his fist again and moving his hand in different patterns. Pre-cum was flowing down Kaworu’s penis at a steady rate now. Kaworu’s belly rose and fell dramatically, and Shinji experimented with tracing his fingers over the veins on Kaworu’s shaft to see how he would react.

          Kaworu pinched his leg and grit his teeth, trying not to cry out. The pressure in his testicles was too much, and he was really close. He couldn’t force open his eyes even if he wanted to. He felt something wet slide over his dick, and he moaned.

          Shinji had bent down, wanting to taste the liquid that was coming out of Kaworu’s erection. He licked Kaworu’s penis. He tasted some kind of saltiness as his tongue swiped over it, which was strange. However, he was too aroused to care.

          Shinji didn’t know if he fit it all in his mouth, so he did all he could with his tongue. He licked around and up, even as Kaworu’s hips thrusted forwards.

          “I’m gonna, oh, Christ, Shinji-” Kaworu moaned. Shinji thought what the hell, and guided Kaworu’s dick into his mouth. He fit half of it inside before his gag reflex kicked in, and he backed away a little. Kaworu appreciated it, though. He started whispering uncontrollably as he neared his orgasm.

          “Oh my god, Shinji- I love you so much- I love you, don’t stop! Please,” Kaworu said.

          Kaworu’s hands fisted in the sheets around him. His toes curled and the pleasure peaked, and he finally tipped over the edge. Spurts of cum came without warning inside Shinji’s mouth. Shinji backed away quickly, surprised. He swallowed the all of the cum that was already inside his mouth, but he stayed back to watch Kaworu.

          It took three more spurts for Kaworu to stop orgasming. He laid there, breathing heavily.

          Shinji turned his attention to his erection, masturbating somewhat slowly. He watched Kaworu’s face, still wanting Kaworu to touch him.

          Kaworu opened his eyes after a minute. He wiped the sweat off his face. Shinji smiled, and bent down to kiss him.

          “I love you too, Kaworu,” Shinji said. Kaworu seemed astonished for a second, but he recovered after the confession.

          “You got cum on your face, Shinji,” Kaworu said. Shinji moved his hand to his cheek, but after rubbing there and finding nothing, Kaworu offered to help.

          “I got it,” Kaworu said. Shinji looked at him gratefully. Kaworu wiped off the white blobs that covered Shinji’s cheeks and part of his nose. He then sat up, and motioned for Shinji to lay down.

          Shinji obliged, excited. Kaworu laid in between Shinji’s legs, and with little pause, took Shinji’s erection in his mouth. Shinji felt the warm, wet walls over his dick, and he couldn’t believe how great the feeling was. He threw his head back.

          Kaworu was able to get nearly all of Shinji’s four inches in his mouth before his gag reflex was triggered. He swirled his tongue around his dick, hallowing his cheeks. Shinji screamed silently, his orgasm fast approaching. Kaworu hummed Ode to Joy, and Shinji’s balls seized up.

          “Kaworu, I,” Shinji choked out, “I’m coming!”

          Kaworu backed off until only the head of Shinji’s penis was still in his mouth. He flattened his tongue across the slit, and was able to get some of it inside it before Shinji began ejaculating.

          Kaworu kept him inside his mouth, swallowing the four spurts that came out. It tasted kinda sweet, which Kaworu liked. He licked the tip after the last had come out to try to see if any more would show up, but only a weak line dribbled out. He was a bit disappointed. He needed to make sure Shinji came more often in his mouth.

          “Why are you staring at my dick like that?” Shinji asked.

          “Like what?” Kaworu said, still looking angrily at his flaccid penis.

          “Like… you’re mad at it or something…” Shinji said. He was getting a little nervous, now. Hopefully Kaworu didn’t regret what they had done, for now wasn’t the best time for him to be angry.

           “I wanted more,” Kaworu said cryptically. Shinji didn’t understand.

           “More… of what?” Shinji questioned.

           “Semen,” Kaworu grumbled. Shinji blushed, his face feeling like it was on fire.

           “Why do you want more of that??” Shinji asked. Kaworu looked at him sharply.

           “It tasted good,” Kaworu answered. “I want to taste it again.”

            Shinji gaped at him. Was he serious?

            “I want you to come in my mouth again,” Kaworu clarified.

            “I know what you meant!!” Shinji squealed, his voice cracking. He laid down on the side, embarrassed. Kaworu snickered and laid down next to him. He held Shinji in his arms and kissed the back of Shinji’s head. He stretched his legs, and felt his clothing with his foot.

            “We should put our pajamas back on before we go to bed,” Kaworu said. He sat up and lethargically put his boxers and pajama pants back on. Shinji grunted, but made no move to get up.

             Kaworu finished putting his shirt on, and he laid back down. He spooned Shinji, and they fell asleep.

\------

          It became morning sooner than Shinji and Kaworu wished. Hyuga’s face appeared in Shinji’s line of vision as he was abruptly awoken. He blinked a few times, wondering why Hyuga seemed so short. His head only barely peeked out from the top of the bed.

          “Good morning, Shinji…?” Hyuga said. He was talking a little slower than usual. His brows were scrunched up a bit, probably in confusion. Shinji didn’t know why he was looking like that, he was more preoccupied with his drowsiness. He really should have gotten more sleep…

          “Where is Kaworu?” Hyuga asked. Shinji remembered with a start why he was tired. He felt Kaworu’s blankets on his naked body, and cursed his past self for not getting dressed again last night.

          “Ah, he’s- um…” Shinji trailed off, wanting Hyuga to leave and not see him nude.

          “Huh? Who needs me?” Kaworu yawned. Shinji jumped, and he watched in horror as Kaworu moved the blankets to sit up and see Hyuga. Shinji’s bare chest was revealed, and Hyuga’s eyes went wide.

          “I’m awake… I’m here…” Kaworu announced sleepily. He was smiling an almost cat-like drowsy grin.

          “Hi, Hyuga…” Kaworu said. He noticed Shinji’s body, and he smiled at how cute his chest was. Until he began to wake up, though, and his expression mimicked Shinji’s.

          “S-Sh-Shinji?? Are you… naked?” Hyuga asked.

          “No!” Shinji said fiercely. Hyuga’s expression fell, which confirmed Shinji's fears that he knew he was lying. Shinji sat up, humiliated beyond belief.

          “W-well yes, but, it’s alright, Hyuga! I was just hot last night, that’s all!” Shinji said. He laughed a fake laugh, and rubbed the back of his neck.

          “Alright, then,” Hyuga said. His voice was monotone.

                  “Breakfast is in twenty minutes. I need to… talk to Misato, so you guys will have to wake everyone else up,” Hyuga said. Shinji nodded, and Hyuga took his chance to scurry out of the room.

          “You think that he knows we had sex?” Kaworu asked. Shinji’s body jerked upwards.

          “Shut up, Kaworu! What if anyone else is awake?! They could have woken u-”

          “You two had sex?!” Toji yelled, standing up quickly to see them. His loud voice woke the other occupants, Aoba and Kensuke, who looked at him with startled expressions.

          “Shit,” Kaworu said, realizing his mistake too late.

          “Did you hear that, Kensuke?! They had sex! SEX!” Toji said, looking at Kensuke with a disgusted smile on his face.

          “Jesus, did they really?!” Kensuke said unbelievingly. He stared at Shinji and Kaworu, who were both avoiding his eyes.

          Kaworu nudged Shinji, who turned to look at him.

          “I’ll get some new clothes for you, stay here,” Kaworu whispered into Shinji’s ear. Shinji nodded.

          “Oi!” Toji said. Kaworu ignored him, hopping of his bed and grabbing clothes for Shinji from under Shinji’s bed.

          “I’m talking to you!” Toji yelled, standing right behind Kaworu’s back. Kaworu slid to the side to avoid him, and he threw the outfit to Shinji so that he could get dressed.

          “You two are disgusting, you know that? Two men, that’s just… that’s just the most gross thing ever! You two should be ashamed of yourselves!” Toji ranted, glaring at Kaworu who stared at him back.

          “That’s enough, Toji!” Aoba said. He stood up, and grabbed Toji’s shoulder. Kaworu snuck away, and he rummaged through his own pile of clothes to make his own outfit. He and Shinji had to get out of there.

          “I’ll say what I wanna say, Aoba! Get off’a me!” Toji said, slapping Aoba’s hand away. He whirled around to Kaworu and Shinji, who were silently getting ready.

          “Men are supposed to be with women, you dumbasses!!” Toji said. Kensuke nodded beside him, silent but seemingly agreeing with him. Every second of this made Shinji want to die.

          Shinji finished putting his clothes on, and he hastily climbed down Kaworu’s bed to stand near him. Kaworu half-assedly put on his socks, and laced up his shoes, and they walked together out of the room. Toji tried to block their way, but Aoba jerked him to the side.

          The door shut loudly behind them. They hadn’t even taken a step forward before they started hearing Aoba yell.

          “You two should be ashamed of yourselves for picking on those two! I don’t want to hear any more of what you want to say!”

          “Shut up, you know it’s fucking wrong! Don’t pretend you aren’t sickened by _that_ ,”Toji shouted.

          Shinji began to cry, his chest heaving. Kaworu grabbed his arm and guided him into the men’s bathrooms on the other side of the hall. After the door was shut, the yelling quieted, which they both appreciated. Once inside, Kaworu hugged Shinji. Shinji felt his hurt fester under his skin like an open wound, and he sobbed readily into Kaworu’s sweatshirt.

          Kaworu waited until Shinji’s sobs had decreased into silent crying before he spoke. He knew that Shinji had to let this out.

          “It’s okay, Shinji,” Kaworu murmured. He stroked Shinji’s back, feeling and hearing Shinji hiccup a few times.

          "I love you, no matter what they do or say. Toji and Kensuke can go fuck themselves,” Kaworu whispered. “They’re dead to me.”

          Shinji heard the change in his voice. He forced his breathing to stabilize, counting to five when inhaling and exhaling. He squirmed, and they stopped hugging.

          Shinji laid his forehead on Kaworu’s. He listened to Kaworu’s breathing for a few moments, and moved away. He walked over to the sinks, and he began brushing his teeth. Kaworu didn’t force him to talk, instead beginning to brush his teeth as well.

          After Shinji had splashed water on his face, the two left the bathroom and headed towards the dining hall.

          “Let’s sit with Aoba and Misato if we can,” Kaworu said. “If a fight breaks out, they can get those two away.”

          “Yeah,” Shinji nodded.

          Right before they entered the room, and with a hand on the door, both Shinji and Kaworu heard a female voice in the room. Kaworu’s eyes widened, and he rushed at the door, opening it as fast as he could. Shinji was startled.

          Inside, Misato and the rest of adults were standing at their guard. Misato was the only one with a gun drawn, but both Hyuga’s and Aoba’s hands were in their left pockets.

          “Mari!” Kaworu shouted. Kaworu was smiling incredulously. He stepped forwards, his eyes watering. Shinji finally looked at where he, and everyone else, was staring.

          In the center of the room, a girl with brown hair in a baseball cap was standing. She seemed to have come in from one of the windows, as it was wide open. She was staring at Kaworu with a disbelieving gaze. Her eyes widened under her pink glasses.

          “Kaworu! Oh my GOD!” The girl shouted.

          Shinji’s brows furrowed. The girl had just said something in a different language. Misato and the others quieted down.

          “Mari…” Kaworu said. The two ran towards each other. Kaworu let himself be squeezed in the giant bear hug the girl gave him.

          “I can’t believe you’re here! How did you get here!?” Kaworu said to Mari, speaking in English.

          Shinji looked at Kaworu. He seemed to know the same language as her. Kaworu and the girl started chatting up a storm. Shinji had no idea what they were saying, but he was pretty sure that this was Mari.

          “Is this Mari?” Shinji asked. He was hoping that Kaworu would switch back to speaking Japanese so he could understand what they were saying.

          Kaworu turned around to look at Shinji, and he gently disentangled himself from Mari’s arms.

          “Yeah, Shinji, this is Mari!” He smiled, speaking in Japanese again. “Mari, meet Shinji!”

          Mari looked at Shinji, searching him for something. Her brow rose, and she squinted. She finally smiled after a moment, and she outstretched a hand for Shinji from across the room.

         "It’s nice to meet you! Shinji, isn’t it?” Mari asked.

          “Is she a friend?” Misato asked Kaworu, her brow furrowed.

          “Yeah, she’s my best friend,” Kaworu replied. “I came here looking for her.”

          “I see…” Misato said. She gestured towards Hyuga and Aoba to relax, and pocketed her handgun.

          Shinji walked towards Kaworu and Mari. He knew that Mari must be a good person, for she was Kaworu’s friend.

          “I’m really sorry. I should have told you more about her. Maybe you guys would have recognized her,” Kaworu apologized to Misato. He bowed towards her. Then, he paused for a second.

          Kaworu turned towards Mari.

          “How good is your Japanese?” He asked Mari, in English.

          “Ah, it’s okay,” She shrugged. Shinji’s mind immediately started concentrating. He recognized that gesture! It was shrugging, something he had seen from an American sitcom that had played on TV. So, Mari was American!

          “That’s right, I haven’t had a chance to practice Japanese for a while…” Mari trailed off. She rubbed her head.

          “H-hello,” Shinji said in English, looking at Mari. She blinked, staring back at Shinji. She looked excited.

          “Hello!!” Shinji tried again.

          “Hello!” Mari echoed, grinning from ear to ear.

          “You are Kaworu’s friend. It’s nice to meet you,” Shinji said, in English. He switched back to Japanese, feeling a little embarrassed.

          “It’s nice to meet you,” He said again.

          “It’s nice to meet you, too,” Mari replied. She looked at Kaworu and whispered something to him. He nodded, and her grin widened even more.

          “Are you from America?” Shinji asked.

          “Yes! I am,” Mari said. “Both me and Kaworu are from America.”

          Shinji stared at Kaworu incredulously. He had no idea that Kaworu wasn’t Japanese.

          “Oh, yeah!” Mari said. She unhooked her backpack from around her shoulders and pulled out of it a little ornament. She shoved it towards Kaworu.

          “My lucky charm!” Kaworu inhaled, reaching excitedly for it. Shinji stepped a bit closer to see what he was holding. It was a tiny sculpture of the earth, but with some kind of red spear piercing through its center.

          “What’s that?” Shinji asked, pointing to the charm. Mari stiffened.

          "It’s the Earth with the Spear of Longinus inside of it!” Kaworu said excitedly. Mari sided up to him and patted his shoulder. She looked apprehensive.

          “What’s the spear of Longinus?” Shinji asked. Kaworu took a big breath, with the biggest grin on his face. Before he started talking, though, Mari covered his mouth with her hand.

          “W-we can talk about that later,” She said quickly. Shinji’s frowned. She saw his expression, and so she explained a bit of the truth.

          “He believes in aliens.”

          “Aliens??” Shinji and Asuka said at the same time.

          “Yes!” Kaworu moved Mari’s hand away. “I know that they’re on earth, and-”

          Mari put both of her hands on his mouth. Kaworu glared at her, but he gave up his efforts to talk.

          “He has all sorts of theories on them. He even thinks that they’re aliens living on the earth. Trust me, you don’t want to hear all of what he has to say,” Mari said, sighing.

          Shinji looked skeptically at Kaworu. Kaworu couldn’t do much but look defeated because he couldn’t explain himself.

          Mari moved her hands away a bit, waiting to see if he’ll start talking. Kaworu held his tongue for a bit, until she had relaxed her arms.

          “Actually, I have proof that I’m an alien!” That was all Kaworu got out until Mari’s hands were back on his mouth. She looked extremely frustrated.

          Shinji couldn’t believe how weird Kaworu was. Kaworu and Mari began having a silent death glaring match.

          “Umm, I don’t mean to interrupt you all,” Misato spoke, trying to be polite. “But our breakfast is ready, and it’s probably cold now, but we should still eat soon.”

          “Ah, okay,” Mari said. She dropped her hands. Everyone hesitated to go into line, but eventually everyone lined up to get food.

          They all gathered their meal of cold soup and sat down. Kaworu and Shinji guided Mari to one of the tables in the corner, far from where Toji and Kensuke were sitting but near the adults.

          As they ate, Kaworu and Mari talked animatedly. Some of their conversation was in Japanese, when Mari could articulate her thoughts in the language, but it switched over to English quite a few times. Now that Shinji knew what language they were speaking, he could pick up on a few words, but he was still out of the conversation.

          Kaworu noticed that he wasn’t being included, and gave Shinji a look to apologize, but Mari captured his attention again with a question.

          Bored, Shinji glanced around the room. He gazed out the windows to see a sunny day. The heat warmed up his face, and he closed his eyes to close for a bit. He wanted to enjoy the nice feeling.

          Toji was talking pretty loudly on the far side of the room. Shinji heard him laugh. Then, Toji started whining about something. It was probably about them. His voice was annoying to listen to, Shinji thought.

          Shinji must have dozed off a bit, because he woke up. The first thing that he noticed was that the room had become eerily quiet. He opened his eyes. Mari had taken out a map, and she and Kaworu were focusing on it. Mari pointed to a spot on it, but Kaworu shook his head.

          Shinji felt something brush his hand. He looked down, and realized that Kaworu had been holding it. Shinji blushed and hid his smile by looking away.

          That’s when he saw that Toji, Kensuke, and Asuka were staring at him. Hikari also glanced at him for a second, but she looked away after she caught his eye. Shinji looked back at them, very wary. Toji’s face got redder than usual, and he seemed to burst a vein on his forehead.

          Toji slammed his hands on the table, effectively startling everyone in the room.

          “Oy, faggot! Come over here,” He yelled. Shinji was taken aback. Mari and Hikari glared daggers at Toji. Kaworu was enraged. He bared his teeth at Toji.

          “How dare you call him that, you fucker,” Kaworu snarled. He stood up, his chair scraping on the floor.

          “You were the one to fuck him, not me!” Toji laughed at his own joke. All of the women in the room gasped at this, now understanding more of what was happening.

          “You slept with him?” Mari quietly asked Kaworu, in English. Kaworu heard that her tone was curious, not accusatory, which he appreciated. He was glad that he had her to calm him down.

          “He’s my boyfriend. I love him,” He replied back to Mari.

          Shinji looked at the ground, his cheeks warming up. Mari whistled lowly.

          “Hey, Toji,” Hikari said. “How come you’re fine with my relationship with Asuka, but you don’t like those two together?”

          “It’s not the same thing!” Toji said.

          “How?” Hikari asked. “How is it not the same as my relationship with Asuka?”

          “It’s just not! You know what I’m trying to say!” Toji said.

          “Is it because they’re both boys? Is that it? Huh?” Hikari looked down at Toji snootily.

          “You know what I mean! It’s disgusting!!” Toji spat. Hikari’s face seemed to darken, and her eyes lost all of the friendliness that they had.

          “You disgust me, Toji,” Hikari said. “I can’t believe you.”

          She looked really pissed.

          Shinji turned his attention away from them, and towards the rest of the room. He met Misato’s eyes, and after a moment, she winked at him and smiled. She silently seemed to articulate that she didn’t see anything wrong with his and Kaworu’s relationship, but she mouthed him that she would like to talk to him later. Shinji nodded, feeling relieved.

          Aoba, sitting next to Misato, was fuming when Shinji fixed his gaze towards him. However, when he say Shinji looking at him, he curtly nodded in understanding. Shinji smiled, wanting to thank him for standing up for him and Kaworu back in the room.

          Hyuga was openly staring at Kaworu and him like he couldn’t wrap his head around what they were. He didn’t look angry, just quite befuddled. Shinji knew that he would probably be giving him questions later. However, he knew that Hyuga usually shared his viewpoints with Misato, so he wasn’t worried that Hyuga would hate them.

          “I agree with Toji, it just seems weird,” Kensuke’s voice came into their argument. He shrugged, trying to seem nonchalant. Hikari pounced at him, taking a hold of his collar with her fists. He froze in place.

          “Who the fuck cares what you think?! I don’t!” She gritted her teeth. “They don’t too!” She cocked her head towards Shinji and Kaworu. Her voice hushed into a whisper.

          “They don’t need you two fucking arrogant bigots who-” Hikari stopped midsentence. Asuka had put both of her hands on Hikari’s shoulders. She understood the situation, and she knew that Hikari was about to say something that would ruin her relationship with the two boys forever. She rubbed her girlfriend’s muscles, forcing her to calm down.

          It was silent for a minute.

          “I wanna go get our chores done for the day early, okay?” Asuka piped up. She smiled as much as she could. Hikari nodded, slowly letting go of Kensuke. She turned away, scowling. She seemed to be coming to terms with how Asuka had saved her from a potentially irreversible situation.

          Asuka patted Hikari’s shoulders. She bent down to kiss the top of her head and left the room. Hikari stared at the exit long after she had left. It was silent for a few seconds, until Hikari stood up to leave as well.

          “Misato, what do we have for today?” Hikari asked.

          “Ah. You, uh, you and Asuka are watering our plants,” Misato replied.

          “’kay.” Hikari said. She followed Asuka out of the lunchroom without a glance back to Kensuke or Toji. Her face flashed sourly for a second, but she turned away before Shinji could think of why. Before she closed the door behind her, she had one last threat to make.

          “If I ever hear you, Toji, or anyone else say the word “faggot” ever again, I will never speak to you again. That’s a promise.”

          Hikari closed the door behind her. Nobody was able to talk for a few moments. Shinji shivered.

          “Shinji, you… you and Kaworu need your assignments for today, yeah?” Misato asked Shinji, hoping that she could dissipate the atmosphere in the room.

          “Yes, thank you,” Shinji said obediently. Misato bent down to get her clipboard from under her legs, and she walked to Shinji’s table.

          “You two were going to… oh yeah, sweep the stockroom and check if anything’s spoiled in the kitchen,” She said, scanning the list. She then thought out loud:

          “But, now that Mari is here…. We have one more person…”

          Misato perked up suddenly.

          “Change of plans.”

          She looked at Shinji.

          “You and I are going on a scavenger mission.”

          “What?!” Shinji asked. Misato stood firm, though, even as he began trembling.

          “Bu-but aren’t there walkers outside?” He asked, his voice cracking. He blushed, and tried again.

          “We can’t go outside now, it’s too dangerous!”

          Misato frowned.

          “We need to not only get more food, but see where Rei has gone, Shinji,” Misato said in a calm tone.

          Shinji quieted down, realizing that she was right. He rubbed his arm anxiously, feeling sorry for not thinking about the group.

          “Even with Rei gone, Mari is here now, so we’re back to nine people… and when we find her, we’ll have ten…” Misato trailed off.

          She put her hand on her face.

          “What if I, Shinji, and Mari went on the scavenger mission instead?” Kaworu piped up hesitantly. Misato stalled for a minute.

          “Well, it’s a good idea, Kaworu, but… that’s three people gone,” Misato said.

          “What if we bring back Rei?” Kaworu countered. Misato looked at him funnily.

          “What?” She asked.

          “We won’t come back until we find her. I believe I know where she might be, with a thirty percent certainty,” Kaworu said. A gleam seemed to flash in his eye. This made Shinji feel a little worried.

          “Thirty percent…? Where would she be?” Misato asked. She looked genuinely curious, but still a bit apprehensive.

          “There’s a convenience store that me and Mari passed on the west side of the town. It’s adjacent to a hunting store. The hunting store could have been where the people who took Rei found their weapons. There’s the only place with ammo, so at least they would have visited there to stock up,” Kaworu explained. He folded his arms confidently. Shinji thought that he looked cool.

          “Hmm…” Misato hummed. She nibbled on her lip for a few seconds.

          “If there’s a chance to find her, I’d really hope that we could take it… Yes, all right, I’ll give you tomorrow to find Rei,” Misato said. Kaworu grinned.

          “You have from sunup to sundown, and you’ll have to make your own food for tomorrow,” Misato added.

          “I can take care of their chores for today, I’ll be in the stock room anyway,” Hyuga offered helpfully.

          “Thank you so much,” Kaworu said, bowing and trying not to grin like a fool. He turned back to Mari and Shinji, and took Shinji’s hand.

          “Are you guys done eating?” Kaworu asked.

          “Yeah,” Mari replied.

          “Yes, I’m done,” Shinji said.

          The three of them added their dirty plates to the existing pile on the table and left the room.

          “Come with me to the rooms,” Kaworu said, leading the way for Mari’s sake.

          “Ah, okay. By the way, who’s the Rei person you mentioned back there?” Mari asked.

          “She’s a friend of ours that was kidnapped yesterday. The group of three that found us back near the hospital came here,” Kaworu said.

          “The group with the white-haired girl?” Mari asked.

          “Yeah,” Kaworu said.

          “Geez, with all the luck…” Mari sighed. “Though, I’m happy to have finally found you. I missed you a lot…”

          “I missed you too, Mari,” Kaworu turned to Mari happily.

          The three came to the barrack rooms. They had the choice of either room, but Shinji led them into the women’s room. He knew there was a lower chance of Asuka, Hikari, or Misato coming into the room, for only they shared it. The women would also be less likely to listen in on them. Well, Shinji was certain that Hikari and Misato wouldn’t eavesdrop. Asuka might, though.

          Mari was the last one in the room, so she closed the door behind them.

          “To be honest, I’ve been thinking about leaving here for a few days now,” Kaworu said, sitting on one of the beds. Shinji was shocked by his statement, and how it was said so casually.

          Learning that the guy he loved wanted to leave the place he’d been calling home felt like a betrayal to Shinji. Would he have left him, too?

          “Oh, so have you been stocking up already? Nice!” Mari said.

          “Yeah, I’ve been hoarding some medicine and food. I made sure not to take too much, though, from the group…” Kaworu had turned to Shinji half-way through his sentence, and he saw Shinji’s gloomy expression.

          “Hey, Shinji, what’s wrong?” Kaworu asked. Shinji refused to look at him. He glared at the floor.

          “Shinji, hey?” Kaworu tried again. Shinji mumbled something, but it was too quiet for Kaworu to hear.

          “What did you say?” Kaworu asked.

          “Would you have left without me?” Shinji muttered, loud enough for both of them to understand.

          “Shinji, oh, oh no! Of course not,” Kaworu said. He grabbed Shinji’s hand. Shinji turned to look him, still brooding.

          “You’re the reason I stayed, Shinji,” Kaworu revealed. He rubbed Shinji’s arm, leaning forward to embrace him. Shinji stopped frowning. He hid his face in Kaworu’s shirt.

          “It’s alright, Shinji. I wouldn’t have left you here, never in a million years,” Kaworu said reassuringly. Shinji nodded, still staying in Kaworu’s arms.

          Kaworu explained to Mari and Shinji where the hunting center was. He had the idea of using the forested area of town as cover so that they could reach the store without anything noticing. It would also give them the element of surprise if the group was still there.

          “What happens if they shoot at us?” Mari asked.

          “We’ll have to try and avoid that the best we can,” Kaworu answered. “If it’s inevitable, we can use up half of our ammo supply so we can get out there safely, but I really don’t want it to come to that. Our best scenario is that we find Rei alone and leave with her without the group noticing.”

          “If we see that white-haired girl again, I’m gonna stab her,” Mari said. She spat on the ground. “There’s no good explanation for why she would shoot at us, or take your friend…”

          “Hm… If you can stab her quietly, then maybe,” Kaworu said.

          “Ah… maybe I’ll just slit her throat then,” Mari mused out loud. Shinji winced.

          “I can’t kill anybody,” Shinji rushed to say. “I couldn’t.”

          Kaworu patted his back.

          “If you’re uncomfortable doing that, then we won’t force you to kill,” Kaworu said. "All that matters is that we find Rei."

          They decided the best course of action was to make a distraction outside, and then sneak into the back of the store. Mari brought up the idea of throwing sticks at the front windows, which would alert the people inside but be quiet enough to not attract the nearby lurkers. If they had to run away, or get separated, their meeting place would be inside the convenience store.

          Mari and Kaworu were to carry guns, and Mari also told Shinji about her lucky knife that she always kept strapped to her belt.

          “Do you wanna guess how many lurkers I’ve killed with this knife?” She asked, smirking.

          “How many?” Shinji asked.

          “Over fifty!” She boasted. “I sharpen her every day, just so she can be ready to kill any of those things if they come near!”

          Shinji opted for only having a machete. He was also going to carry the largest portion of their supplies.

          “Are we going to make our food tonight, or wait until the morning?” Mari asked. Kaworu hummed.

          “It would be best if we left as early as possible, so I think that we should make them before we go to bed,” Kaworu said.

          “Misato should be out of the kitchen,” Shinji supplied.

          The three walked to the kitchen. They passed Kensuke, who was sweeping the main hall with a broom and dustpan. Hyuga was inside the dining room, wiping off the tables with a rag.

          “Yo,” He greeted the three kids when they came in.

          “Is Misato in there?” Shinji asked, pointing towards the kitchen.

          “No, she’s with Asuka on the roof,” Hyuga said.

          “Guard duty?” Kaworu asked.

          “Yeah,” Hyuga affirmed.

          Kaworu, Mari, and Shinji headed into the kitchen. All of their dishes from breakfast were stacked neatly in piles. They were all clean. The faint scent of dishwashing soap filled the room.

          “Where’s the food?” Mari asked, opening a cupboard.

          “The majority of it is in here,” Shinji explained. He opened the largest cupboard, which was taller than him. Cans and boxes of food littered the shelves. Many were unorganized, and some of their labels were expired.

          “The usual meal for scavenger missions is a sandwich, some fruit, and a piece of bread,” Shinji said.

          “We’ll probably only be able to make one full meal for tomorrow for each of the three of us, so it’ll have to last the full day,” Shinji added.

          “Really??” Mari asked.

          “Yeah,” Shinji replied. “Hopefully there’s a good dinner tonight. We’ll have to eat as much as we can.”

          Mari groaned.

          “I still have some snacks that we can share,” Kaworu said. Mari perked up.

          “Thank god!! You’re a lifesaver, Kaworu,” Mari said, hugging him tightly.

          The three made their meals, all nearly identical except for the sandwich. Shinji opted for carrots and onions on his, Kaworu piled on lettuce, and Mari added as many vegetables they had.

          “I miss ketchup,” Mari sighed.

          With Hyuga in charge of their chores for the morning, they didn’t have anything else to do. Shinji told them that he wanted to check with Misato to see if he could do anything. Mari said that she wanted to catch up with Kaworu, and so Shinji split up from them.

          Shinji found Misato in the bathrooms. She was petrified in the corner, her eyes bulging. She shivered.

          “Misato? What’s wrong?” Shinji asked. Misato looked at him, her face still frozen in fear.

          “It’s… over there!” She whispered.

          “What’s over where?” Shinji asked.

          “A… a spider!” Misato said the word with absolute ferocity, making the bug sound like it was the most evil thing in the world. Shinji took of his shoe and snuck inside the stall she pointed towards. Inside was a daddy longlegs, hanging on the wall in the perfect position to hit.

          Shinji striked forward with his shoe, stomping the insect flat. He wiped its body off his shoe with some toilet paper, and came out of the stall.

          “Is it dead? Did you kill it?” Misato said, blinking.

          “Yep, it’s gone,” Shinji said. Misato’s breathed a sigh of relief, relaxing now that she had been saved.

          “I hate those things,” She spat out.

          “Me too,” Shinji agreed.

          He asked her about what had to be done for the day. She gave him the assignment of weeding the onion plants, and then told him to work with Kaworu and Mari on cleaning up the bathroom.

          Shinji got to work, letting himself focus on nothing but his duties. His mind relaxed with the simple motions of pulling the green abominations out of the soil, and then snipping off the dead parts of the plants.

          Two hours later, he found Mari and Kaworu and they came to the bathrooms together.

          “How many toilets do we have to clean?” Mari asked, dropping the water bucket to the floor. The water sloshed inside.

          “We have five,” Shinji began. Mari smiled.

          “That’ll be quick, then!” She said.

          “Five in this bathroom. The bathroom next door, the men’s bathroom, has five as well. Plus, urinals,” Shinji finished.

          “What the heck… I didn’t sign up for this…” Mari said, pouting. She grabbed her sponge and began wiping off the mirrors sullenly. Shinji and Kaworu both smiled, and they started cleaning the toilets.

          It took them until lunchtime to finish the women’s bathroom. They were all sweaty and grossed out, so their lunch was gobbled up quickly. They were still cleaning the men’s bathroom, which barely rivaled the women’s bathroom in grime, when Misato came in to announce it was dinner time. She thanked them for their hard work.

          Dinner was a vegetable soup with beef jerky. It was fairly hearty, even though the flavors of jerky clashed with the chicken broth. Shinji smiled, knowing the meal was made to help their journey for tomorrow. On the way to put away his dishes, he thanked Misato for the meal. She grinned, but said nothing in reply.

\-----

          “You know, if I wasn’t already used to rotten stenches after months without bathing, this would really reek,” Mari said as she scrubbed off a yellow stain off the bottom of a toilet.

          “Hey, Shinji, look!” Kaworu said. Shinji stood up, off from his knees, and walked into Kaworu’s stall.

          “Doesn’t this stain look like a bird?” Kaworu asked, pointing to a brown mark on the wall of the stall.

          “I dunno, how does it look like a bird?” Shinji asked, squinting to see.

          “It’s facing sideways! Here’s the head, and these are the wings,” Kaworu said.

          “Ohh… I see now,” Shinji said. Mari squeezed into the stall with them.

          “Where is the bird stain?” She asked. Kaworu explained where it was again.

          “Ah! I see it!! How cool!” Mari said. Kaworu began scrubbing off the stain with his soapy sponge.

          “Tch. How heartless, killing the birdie like that,” Mari joked. Kaworu shook his head, smiling at her antics.

          They completed cleaning the room in one more hour of hard work. The floors and ceilings didn’t sparkle, but they were satisfied with its cleanliness nonetheless.

          “I’m tired,” Mari said. “When do you guys normally go to bed?”

          “Bed time is usually from eight-thirty to nine,” Kaworu answered.

          “Seriously??” Mari asked. “That’s earlier than I went to bed when I was in school…”

          Kaworu smiled understandingly.

          “What’s school like in America?” Shinji asked. Without much pause, the two Americans eagerly supplied him with information about their school system. Shinji was bombarded by facts continuously as they walked to their bedrooms. They finally stopped talking when they came to the doors.

          “Should I go into the women’s room?” Mari asked. She looked almost excited for a moment.

          “Sure. I’m positive that they can make a bed for you,” Shinji said. Mari said good-night to the two boys, smiling, and entered the room.

          “Why was she so happy?” Shinji questioned.

          “Mari’s a lesbian,” Kaworu said.

          “Is she really??” Shinji asked.

          'Damn, there are a lot of lesbians here,' he thought to himself.

          “Let’s go to sleep, Shinji,” Kaworu said.

          Shinji was lost in his thoughts, not paying attention.

          “If you wanna sleep in my bed again tonight, you can,” Kaworu continued. “...In fact, we can even have sex again tonight. I’ll let you come in my ass, and we can even fuck upside down if we want to.”

          “Sure,” Shinji agreed, still not listening.

          “We can even let Toji and Kensuke join in! I’m sure they would like that, you know,” Kaworu continued. Shinji nodded.

          “Shinji, I’m pregnant, and you’re the father.”

          “Huh? Pregnant?” Shinji snapped back, looking at Kaworu confusedly. Kaworu smiled, holding back a snigger, and led him silently into the room.

          The room was empty. They must have been the first ones to decide to go to bed. They got into their pajamas. Shinji found his dirty pair of pajamas from last night inside Kaworu’s blankets, and he threw them into the laundry pile.

          “Are we gonna sleep together?” Shinji asked.

          “Sure, if you want to,” Kaworu said.

          “Yeah,” Shinji said. He climbed up into Kaworu’s bed.

          “You forgot your blankets,” Kaworu said, still on the ground.

          “Oh.”

          Kaworu threw Shinji’s pillow and blankets on his bed. Shinji settled down, getting comfortable under the sheets. He felt warmer than usual with two blankets on instead of two, which he liked.

          The door clicked open. Aoba and Hyuga came inside, conversing with each other.

          “-kinda silly to say that best kind of taste is salty, because too much salt can kill someone,” Aoba said.

          “Salt is necessary, though, for proper body functions. People with a sodium deficiency can develop goiter and sweating around the neck,” Hyuga said.

          “Hmm…”

          Kaworu crawled into bed with Shinji, and he slid into the blankets. The two snuggled together, waiting patiently for the rest of the men to get ready for bed. Shinji felt drowsy enough to fall asleep, even with the activity of the room.

          Kaworu laid awake even as Shinji slept. He usually had to have near silence in a room for his body to relax enough to sleep.

          After what seemed like forever, everyone settled down and into their beds. Kaworu fell asleep, holding onto Shinji.


	8. Finding Rei

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shinji, Kaworu, and Mari head to the hunting emporium, trying to find Rei before her kidnappers leave. Kaworu reveals something about himself to them, which catches both Mari and Shinji off-guard. Lilllith finds the group, and she threatens Shinji's life.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I decided to add some sci-fi elements in this chapter! I hope you like the direction I took with Kaworu~

          Kaworu and Shinji woke up at five a.m. Using the wall and bed posts for support, they got ready for their rescue mission in the dark. It took a while for both of their eyes to adjust to the windowless room, which made it quite a challenge.

          After they had finished, Shinji and Kaworu waited in front of the women’s rooms for for Mari. After ten minutes, they got a bit restless. They wondered why she wasn't coming out. Shinji was about to ask Kaworu if they should check if she was still sleeping, but they saw the bathroom door on the other side of the room swing open. Mari stepped out, grinning.

          “Yo! Good morning!” Mari said. She was fully dressed, and looking cute in a panda sweatshirt and track pants.

          “Good morning,” both Shinji and Kaworu echoed her. Mari pulled her hair back to put it in a ponytail. She held a hair tie in her teeth, and she swiftly made her hair.

          "Let's go!" Mari chirped. She stretched out her arms, and she bent down to touch her toes.

          The three of them walked to the kitchen, where their three packs of food awaited in the cupboard. Kaworu grabbed a pack of bullets from the storeroom, and Shinji loaded up on bandages and grabbed a bottle of hydrogen peroxide. He also grabbed his machete, and the two others made sure their guns were secured safely on their belts.

          With their three backpacks filled up with the necessary materials, they climbed over the wooden barriers in front of the museum. They immediately noticed three lurkers loitering outside, but they were spread apart. The lurkers seemed oblivious to their presences, as they hobbled around in different directions.

          “Which way?” Shinji whispered. Kaworu pointed to the left.

          “We’ll stay on the border of trees and the road,” Kaworu said.

          They walked across the road for an hour, keeping close to the trees. If they ever needed cover, from bullets or lurkers, they could run into the trees. Kaworu walked next to Shinji, and Mari headed their group in the front. Mari frequently glanced around, ready to act at any moment. Her knife glinted in her left hand. Shinji thought he saw her hand twitch, and he wondered if she was eager for something to happen.

          The walking was taking a pretty big strain on Shinji's body. He hadn’t walked more than a mile in over three months, and his legs had started to ache not even a quarter way in their trip. He refrained from asking how long they still had to go, but the question was tempting. Shinji’s foot caught on a stick, which nearly made him trip over. He gasped, but grounded his feet before he fell.

          “Are you okay, Shinji?” Kaworu asked, his voice sounding loud after almost an hour of complete silence. Shinji flinched at the loudness, but he nodded. Kaworu walked over to him, taking his hand. They got back into position, Kaworu only letting go of his hand when Shinji squeezed it. He assured Kaworu that he was fine, and Kaworu moved away.

          By this time, the sun had started to rise. The sky was dyed pink and yellow, which made a beautiful sight. Shinji and Kaworu took a minute to appreciate the view, but Mari was too determined to pay it any mind. She kept her focus on level ground, but once in a while she stopped and grabbed a stick from the ground.

          Shinji’s feet started to twitch, which wasn’t a good sign. To his disgust, his brain started paying attention to how sweaty and gross his feet were inside his shoes. He started dreading taking every step. Thankfully, the world decided to show him some mercy, and they came to the town. Shinji sighed in relief.

          “What time is it?” Kaworu asked Mari. Mari looked down at her watch.

          “It’s seven fifty-eight,” She said. Kaworu yawned.

          They continued walking for ten minutes, until Kaworu sighted the store.

          “There it is,” Kaworu commented. Shinji looked at the pillars in front of the store, which all bore similar logos of a white deer in a green forest. The store front’s banner read “Japanese Emporium of Hunting Gear and Supplies,” written with a sharp font.

          A few cars stood in the otherwise-empty parking lot. Knowing that there could be lurkers hiding, they slowed down their pace to make quieter footsteps. Mari looked around all of the cars, trying to find any hidden bodies. It seemed luck was on their side, for she found nothing.

          They took a few minutes to search the rest of the cars. Only one was locked, but they didn’t find anything useful searching the others.

          They crouched in front of the store, hearing nothing. A bird flew overhead.

          Mari divided her bundle of six sticks between the three of them. They took turns hurling the sticks at the emporium’s wall. A branch, thrown by Kaworu, hit the store’s glass doors. They reverberated, making an audible _clang._ Hopefully they had attracted the attention of anyone inside.

          After Shinji threw the final stick, they creeped along the store's outside, heading towards its back entrance. A lurker groaned, coming from the direction where they had been. This meant that they had company.

          Mari’s brows furrowed, and she clicked her tongue.

          “We’ll deal with that later,” Mari whispered. She pushed up her glasses with the back of her hand.

          Some large blue and yellow trash bins came into view, all in front of a pair of steel doors. A corpse laid in one of the trash bins, with a bullet wound in her head.

          Shinji reached the doors first. He half-expected them not to open, but he pushed on them anyway. Even with all of his strength, they didn’t budge. He dropped his arms, frowning.

          “Shinji…? There’s a handle… umm… right there, right by your waist,” Mari said, trailing off. Shinji looked down, and sure enough, there was one sticking out.

          “Oh… I just... I thought... I... I didn’t see that, sorry,” Shinji apologized hastily, embarrassed. He felt like an idiot, how could he not have seen that?

          “It’s all right, it’s understandable. It’s still pretty dark,” Kaworu said, trying to lift his spirits. Shinji smiled, feeling happy that Kaworu tried to throw him a bone.

          When Shinji pulled on the handle, the doors opened. The inside was pitch black. Shinji hesitated to enter, scared of the ominous darkness before him.

          “Shit, we forgot flashlights, didn’t we,” Mari swore. She grimaced, and folded her arms.

          She  thought hard about a solution, for heading inside without any light would be a perfect recipe for a lurker ambush. They could go back for flashlights, but that would be a waste of two hours of precious time. She tapped her foot, feeling pissed off.

          “I guess it can’t be helped,” Kaworu muttered. Without any warning, he walked towards the entrance, and he faded into the darkness. Shinji watched him go for a second, his brain struggling to comprehend what was happening.

          “KAWORU?” He asked, his voice squeaking. He couldn’t believe what the hell Kaworu had just done. This was dangerous beyond all levels! He could get hurt! He could get killed!!

          Before the rational part of his mind could stop him, Shinji started walking forward. He was stopped two seconds after, when Mari roughly grabbed his arm. Shinji struggled to go forward, wanting to see Kaworu.

          “No, Shinji, no,” Mari said, her voice wavering. Shinji whirled around to face her.

          “Let me go! I need to go find him, now!!” Shinji tried prying off her hand, but her grip was too tight.

          "Calm down, we need first to make sure that he's fine, all right?!" Mari yelled. She took a breathe to speak again, but she stopped. Shinji felt the hand on his arm loosen. Shinji looked up at Mari, and he saw her brown eyes were dilated wide with disbelief.

          Shinji turned around. The doorway, which had been pitch black, was now illuminated in a pale blue light. A figure stood across the long hallway of the entrance. Their body was surrounded with the light, which made them seem ethereal.

          Shinji stepped forward, mesmerized with the light. He didn’t feel frightened by the figure, who seemed to emit an aura of gentleness. The person reached a hand out to him. Shinji responded by walking into the doorway, wanting to get closer. He heard the footsteps of Mari tap quietly behind him.

          The smiling face of Kaworu came into view, and recognizing it, Shinji broke out in a sprint. He jumped into Kaworu’s arms, and Kaworu caught him effortlessly.

          “Kaworu!” Shinji whispered. He lifted up his face to kiss Kaworu. He didn’t realize how scared for Kaworu he had been, and the relief off his shoulders made him feel giddy.

          “What the fuck…” Mari said quietly behind them. Shinji continued kissing Kaworu, feeling happy he was being held.

          “Why the hell are you glowing??” Mari asked, trying not to yell. Her instincts were screaming at her to get away from Kaworu. She forced her body to stay in place with intense willpower, so she could talk to her friend. The two boys broke their kiss, and Kaworu answered her.

          “I told you I was an alien.”

          That was all Kaworu gave Mari. Then, he and Shinji kissed again.

          Mari rubbed her temples. None of this made sense! How could she accept that Kaworu was anything but human?!

          ‘Okay, what the fuck,’ Mari thought, ‘I know that he’s immune to walker bites, which always made him different, but I guess I didn’t really question it that much… Still, though, an alien?!!’

          As her mind tried to process all of the new information, she realized she he was almost as unnerved with Kaworu as she was with Shinji, who seemed to be almost too happy in this situation. He was snuggled peacefully into Kaworu’s arms. Mari could imagine him purring.

          “Hey, hey, Shinji, why aren’t you freaking out? Doesn’t this seem strange to you?” Mari asked, her consonants coming out more forcefully than usual. Her question made Shinji move his head, and he stared at Kaworu. His eyes were dreamy, but they looked a little puffy, like he had been holding back from crying.

          “I don’t know… I don’t know… why am I not confused…? I suppose this is really strange… but…” Shinji spoke softly. He turned to smile at Mari.

          “I just get a feeling of happiness when I look at Kaworu, now. I think that we’ve met before… and how glad I am to see him again... I have no idea why… I’m so happy…” Shinji ended his sentence with a slow blink. Mari rubbed her eyes, wondering if this was a dream. She thought that if she was in a cartoon, now would be the time when smoke came out of her brain.

          Kaworu kissed the top of Shinji’s head. He let Shinji down, and the light around him dimmed until it only covered half of the room around them. Kaworu grinned like a fool, and he whispered in Shinji’s ear that he missed him too. Shinji nodded happily, not understanding and understanding at the same time.

          With little force, Kaworu opened the door behind him that led into the main part of the store. He walked inside, with Shinji and Mari trailing behind. The room they entered was spacious yet filled with lots of shelves. The place didn’t seem to be ransacked, and many of the aisles still had their products neatly stacked and organized. An aisle labeled “Fish and Tackle” stood in front of them.

          Mari’s eyes shifted around, cementing everything’s position in her mind. She moved to the front, deciding it was up to her to take charge. She gestured to an aisle to their left, wanting the boys to follow her.

          Assorted guns, all in glass cases, hung on the wall. They seemed to be fake, as one of them had been taken out of its glass case and torn apart into shreds. Shinji wondered what material they were made of. He veered from the group, going to touch it.

          A shadow crept into Shinji’s line of vision, and he hastily grabbed his machete from his belt. A lurker lunged at him, but Shinji struck forwards, plunging the machete into its forehead. He used both of his hands to take it out, and the lurker fell to the floor. The corpse’s clothes made a muffled sound, and all was quiet again.

          “Whoa, are you okay?” Mari asked.

          “Shinji, wow,” Kaworu said.

          Shinji smiled, blushing. He was even surprised at how quickly he had acted.

          "I hope there's nobody inside here, because anyone here would have definitely heard that," Mari said. They heard nothing, which was a bit disappointing.

          "The store must be empty," Mari sighed.

          Shinji felt the fake gun. He poked into it, and his finger made a hole that rose up slowly. It was soft. He guessed that this was probably foam that was painted professionally to appear like a real gun.

          “How cool,” Shinji whispered. He took an untouched replica gun, wanting to show Kensuke. He knew that Kensuke loved machinery and silly things like that.

          The three journeyed across the room, which held nothing else in it but the bodies of two dead lurkers. They searched their pockets, but they seemed to have been normal civilians, holding nothing but wallets and credit cards.

          A line of buck heads were mounted on the wall in the front, which gave all of them the creeps. Their beady black eyes stared at nothing.

          “Nope, there's nobody here,” Mari said, after they had walked around the whole store. "Kind of a bummer, yeah?"

          “Yeah. If Rei isn't here, then we should leave,” Kaworu said. Mari agreed, nodding.

          “Ah, and I’m getting hungry,” Shinji told the two.

          “It’s… 12:28 p.m. right now,” Mari said, glancing at her watch again.

          “Should we go to the gas station right next door and take some time to eat there?” Kaworu offered.

          “Will there be more food there?” Shinji asked, his tone excited.

          “I think so,” Kaworu said, smiling.

          Mari rolled her eyes. They were too cute together. Even when they were romantic, or when Kaworu was trying to make Shinji happy, they were cute.

          “Hey, let’s go,” Mari said, pushing open the front doors. The light around Kaworu disappeared, and natural light flooded into their visions.

          “Oh shit,” Mari swore.

          Outside, two walkers were scratching on the boarded-up windows only five feet away from them. Mari rushed forward, burying her knife in one of their brains before they could turn around. She moved back, before the other lurker could try and bite her.

          She _tsked_ , annoyed that she had to leave her knife there.

          Kaworu looked at Shinji, and then at the machete in his right hand. Shinji handed him the knife.

          The other lurker turned around. It looked very unpleasant, with half its face falling off, and its jaw barely hanging on to the remaining part of it.

          Kaworu swiped with Shinji’s machete, cutting the lurker’s head off. Mari ran forward, grabbing her knife from the other lurker and cleaning it off with the lurker’s shirt.

          Shinji saw Kaworu’s face go green as he stared at the lurker’s dead body. Kaworu bolted to the side, throwing up onto the corner of the wall. Shinji went to him.

          “Are you okay? Kaworu?” Shinji asked, concerned. He rubbed Kaworu’s shoulder, as Kaworu kept heaving. After a minute, Kaworu turned to face Shinji.

          “It’s okay, my love, I’m fine,” Kaworu said, addressing Shinji charmingly. His desired effect was lost, however, as some of his barf covered the side of his face. His sweatshirt was also stained with vomit and splatters of blood from the decapitated lurker. Shinji looked down, to his own shirt, which was also covered with spots of blood.

          “We need a change of clothes…” Shinji said. Mari looked at her own sweatshirt.

          “Fuck! FUCK! I liked this shirt! Damn it!” Mari swore. She stomped her foot. WIth a huff, she headed back into the store. She went towards what she believed to be the clothing section. She grabbed the first three clothing items she found, and she walked out.

          Shinji helped Kaworu take off his sweatshirt, and he took of his own. He wiped off the vomit on Kaworu’s face with his shirt’s sleeve, and Kaworu thanked him.

          Mari returned, carrying a fuzzy yellow jacket, a camo sweatshirt, and a kid’s hoodie patterned with dinosaurs.

          “Huh, how interesting of picks,” Kaworu joked. Mari smirked and threw the camo sweatshirt and dinosaur hoodie at the two boys. She put on the jacket, which was a little big for her. She liked it, though, because it was made of warm fleece. There was also four pockets available on it, which she thought was useful.

          “Which do you want?” Kaworu asked, showing Shinji both of the shirts.

          “Um…. I’ll take the dinosaurs,” Shinji offered, not wanting to make Kaworu wear the childish shirt. Kaworu handed him the hoodie, and he zipped up the sweatshirt.

          “Ah, it’s a little small on me,” Kaworu said. The sweatshirt left the bottom of his midriff open, which Shinji liked, but he knew wasn’t practical. Sighing, Shinji handed the hoodie back over, taking the camo sweatshirt for his own. The dino sweatshirt didn’t really suit the cool Kaworu, but it would have to do for now.

          The three began walking to the gas station next door. Mari’s stomach rumbled, which made them pick up their pace.

          “By the way, what made you throw up?” Mari asked Kaworu. They entered the station’s parking lot.

          “Huh… I guess the kill affected me, somehow… I’m not sure,” Kaworu answered. Mari hummed.

          “I’m just as puzzled as you are,” Kaworu finished, shrugging.

          “You’ve killed before, tons of times. I wonder… maybe-” Mari’s statement was cut off when they entered the gas station. A bell ringed above them, and sitting on the floor only a few feet away was Rei.

          Rei was chewing on a bread bun. She slowly looked up, and the door behind them swung shut. Nobody spoke for half a minute.

          “Yo,” Rei said. She took another bite of her bun, seemingly unfazed by the other three’s shocked faces. She then took a drink from a juice box.

          “Re-REI!” Shinji yelled. Rei’s eyes narrowed, and she glared in Shinji’s direction. Shinji didn’t understand her change in demeanor, until he felt something poking the back of his head.

          Mari and Kaworu turned to look. A woman, with short white hair styled in the same way as Rei’s, was holding up a gun to Shinji’s head. Shinji felt every muscle in his body tense. He had no idea what was going on, but he knew that the object was probably a gun. He forced himself to keep looking forward.

          “Lillith, no,” Rei warned in a steady voice. The woman didn’t move a muscle.

          Shinji felt sweat accumulate on his cheeks, and he gulped. He really didn’t want to die. He felt the most scared he had been in a long time, and he locked eyes with Kaworu. These seconds seemed like hours to Shinji.

          “They’re my friends,” Rei said. Lillith glared back at Rei, her mouth tight. After a staring battle with Rei, she looked away from her and put down her gun. Shinji’s whole body relaxed, and Kaworu’s eyes softened.

          “Why are they here,” Lillith said, rather than asked, in a voice that sounded almost the same as Rei’s. It was a bit lower, but Shinji heard the same familiar monotone base behind it.

          “My name is Mari. We came to get supplies,” Mari lied. The woman looked at her with an accusing look. Mari struggled to keep from glaring back at her. She made her expression as neutral as possible, but it was difficult staring at the woman who had shot at her and Kaworu less than a month before. Mari wondered if she even remembered them.

          “We’re all wearing shirts from the hunting store next door,” Mari said, getting an idea. She ripped off the tag hanging from her sleeve. The woman took it before Mari offered it to her, and she read it. Lillith's shoulders relaxed a bit.

          “Lillith, this is Shinji, Kaworu, and Mari,” Rei said, introducing them all. “And, this is Lillith, my older sister.”

          “Hello,” said Lillith. She walked past Kaworu, Shinji, and Mari, and to Rei. Rei handed her a protein bar. Lillith turned back around.

          “Sorry,” Lillith said to Shinji. Her voice was clipped. Shinji couldn't tell if she meant her apology or not.

          Shinji nodded, too frightened to say anything. 

          Lillith took out a walkie-talkie from her pocket, and she pressed a button.

          “Hey, this is Lillith. Three of Rei’s friends came into the store, don’t shoot them,” Lillith spoke into the speaker, her voice unemotional.

          “Roger,” Two voices, one female and one male, sounded from the device. Lillith pocketed the walkie-talkie.

          “I’ll be back in ten,” Lillith said to Rei. “I’ll be bringing back some fish with Ramiel and Sachiel, so don’t eat too much.”

          “’kay.” Rei said.

          Lillith left the store, the bell on the door chiming once more.

          “I'm sorry she did that, Shinji,” Rei said. “She gets angry easily.”

          “'Angry easily?!' She threatened Shinji’s life, and she tried killing me and Kaworu,” Mari said, watching Lillith leave with narrowed eyes. “I don’t want her near us.”

          Rei nodded, showing that she understood. The snack wrapper crinkled in her hand. She threw it behind her.

          “Her lack of impulse control can endanger anyone she doesn’t know,” Rei elaborated. "I think that it would be best for you all to leave, for I can't guarantee all of your safety if she decides that she doesn't like you all."

          "Sounds good," Mari said. She twirled a strand of her hair.

          “Wait, wait. We’re here to bring you back, Rei,” Shinji said. Rei looked up at him.

          “Can’t you come back with us?” Shinji asked.

          Rei stood up. She brushed off her knees.

          “Sorry, but I have to stay with my sis,” Rei said. “I wish that I could come back to our group, I really do, but… she’s my family.”

          “Rei…” Shinji trailed off. He was struggling to accept what she had said.

          “So, I guess this is good-bye, for us…” Rei said. She kicked the floor with her shoe.

          Shinji felt sad as the reality set in. Rei would be leaving with Lillith’s group, and unless they happened to come back to the museum, they’d never see each other again.

          “Can you tell everyone good-bye for me?” Rei continued. “And, can you make sure that all of my food goes to Sakura, so she can get healthy again?”

          “We can do that,” Kaworu said. Shinji’s didn’t trust himself enough to try speaking, for just holding back from crying was becoming difficult.

          Rei had been one of his only friends. She was the only person, before Kaworu had come, that would sit and talk with him. He didn’t want her to leave, and he didn’t want to never see her again.

          Shinji felt hot tears on his face. He looked down, ashamed.

          Rei put a hand on his shoulder. He looked up at her. Rei took out a pencil from her pocket, and she moved Shinji’s hand so he could hold it. The pencil was dark blue, with patterns of the stars and moon on it. The pencil itself wasn’t important, but Rei seemed to be giving it to him as a token. Shinji thought about how having it would make sure that he never forgot her, and he started crying again.

          “Th-thank you,” Shinji said, his voice heavy with emotion. He gripped the pencil hard.

          “Take care, Shinji,” Rei said, with a smile on her face.

          After a minute, Mari turned and opened the door again. She left, saying nothing. Kaworu waited a second for Shinji, but when he realized that he needed more time, he followed silently. The bell chimed again.

          Shinji leapt at Rei, holding her in his arms. He gave her a bear hug. Rei hugged him back, her arms resting gently on Shinji’s back. A minute passed before Shinji stopped squeezing her.

          “Good-bye,” Shinji choked out.

          “Good-bye, Shinji,” Rei said.

          Shinji broke their hug. He put Rei’s pencil in his pocket. He left the gas station, looking over his shoulder as he was leaving. She kept smiling at him as she watched him go. She waved good-bye, and he did so as well.

“Are you ready to go?” Mari asked, her voice hesitant.

“Yeah,” Shinji said. He wiped at his tears. Kaworu rubbed his arm, and he smiled at Kaworu, thanking him for the gesture. Shinji waved at her one last time, and Rei did the same.

          The three traveled back to the museum, using the edge of the forest to guide them back. They took turns eating their lunches as they walked. It was still daytime, but the afternoon was nearly finished. The food was bland, but their bodies appreciated their full stomachs.

          Suddenly, a rustle from inside the tree line made them stop. Mari held up her knife, poised to strike. Kaworu stepped in front of Shinji.

          “Asuka! ASUKA!” The three heard Hikari’s voice shout from a long distance away. It surprised all of them.

          “Are we close to the museum?!” Shinji asked Mari.

          “We’re getting close, but there’s no way we would have heard anyone inside,” Mari said. She shook her head a few times, unable to understand how they had heard Hikari.

          A panic settled over the three. Breaking into a run, they reached the museum in less than fifteen minutes.

          The sight was ghastly to behold. Large scarlet flames were consuming the museum, running as high as the top floors. The stone beams holding up the building were the only things keeping the structure up, but its collapse was coming.  They could hear the crackling from where they were standing, more than twenty feet away. As they ran closer, they saw that all of the building’s front windows had been broken, and glass was scattered everywhere.

          “Oh my god…” Mari whispered.

          Kaworu’s mouth hung open.

          Shinji screamed loudly, the sound filling the air with dread. He thought of the people inside, and all of their food and supplies. He also was reminded of the planetary and aquarium exhibits he saw with Kaworu, and how he would never be able to witness them again.

          They saw three people climb over the entrance’s barrier. It was Toji, carrying Sakura on his back, and Kensuke, wearing two bags. They ran towards the forest, not stopping to talk to Shinji’s group.

          “Wait, what happened!!” Shinji yelled, his voice pleading for them to stop.

          “Fire! We’re the last to leave!” Kensuke called back. He was the only one to provide them an answer, but it was less than helpful.

          “Where are you going?!” Shinji yelled as loud as he could.

          “Sakae!... We’re going… Misato… temple…” Kensuke’s voice got softer as he kept booking it. After only a few seconds, Shinji couldn’t distinguish what he was saying. He caught the name of a nearby town, but nothing else he said made sense.

          “What are we going to do?! We can’t go back in!” Mari said.

          “We need to go to Sakae!” Shinji said, with intense conviction. He needed to know what happened, and if everyone had escaped safe.

          “Wait, but, we don’t know where that is! Plus, we don’t know what it’s like there!” Mari said. She held up her hands.

          Kaworu cut her off with a shake of his head.

          “We’re going to Sakae,” Kaworu said.

          “Tch,” Mari frowned. “What happened to ‘never going to cities unless we know its current state,’ huh?”

          Kaworu glared at her. He knew that cities were usually a terrible idea, but this was for Shinji’s sake. He needed to see his group again.

          “We’ll talk later,” Mari said, deciding to comply with this new mission, but not letting the matter go.

          “Let’s go back to the main part of the city. If there’s a town hall, we could find a map that would lead us in the right direction,” Kaworu said.

          “Sounds like a plan,” Shinji said.

          The three headed back in the direction they came. They took a break halfway, all of their legs sore from the exercise. Mari gestured for Kaworu to follow her into the forest.

          “We’ll be back in a bit, Shinji. If anything shows up, come find us, okay?” Mari said. Shinji nodded, sitting down.

          She and Kaworu walked for a minute straight into the forest. Mari sat down on a fallen log, with Kaworu sitting down on the ground a few feet in front of her.

          “Okay, I need to get this off my chest. I know that he’s your boyfriend, but we still have to be smart, okay?” Mari said. “Cities are bad news, with too many lurkers and hostile people. We've only run into other groups in the cities!”

          “I understand,” Kaworu said. “However, I believe that Shinji would never be able to join with us until he said good-bye to his friends, so that’s why we need to make this trip. I know that it would endanger us, but I want him to happy.”

          Mari thought to herself for a minute.

          “As long as you understand the dangers...” Mari said. She sighed.

          “I do like him, you know? I know he makes you happy. I just… well... I want to go back to living like we used to, hunting and living all over the woods. I miss how much fun we had together. Please don’t get the impression that I’m getting angry for the wrong reasons,” Mari continued.

          “I totally understand, Mari. It was fun, living like that. I hope that we can go back to the lake sides, and be able to live comfortably again,” Kaworu said. He smiled.

          “I hope Shinji likes fish,” Mari said. Kaworu laughed, and Mari let a chuckle slip out as well.

          “We should be getting back,” Mari said. Kaworu nodded, and they walked back. They reached Shinji, who was now kneeling on the road. Shinji was massaging his swollen feet. Shinji put his shoes back on, and they kept walking. He didn’t ask about what they had talked about, which made Mari trust him more.

          After ten more minutes on the road, Mari spoke.

          “Hey, Kaworu, I’m still confused about your ‘being an alien’ thing, can you explain it more to us?”

          “Of course!” Kaworu replied, his mouth upturned in a proud grin. Mari couldn't help but be worried that he would give them a long story, but she was curious about him.

          Kaworu explained how he had woken up in a chamber at the age of four inside a governmental lab in Germany. He had been flown to the United States when he was seven, after years of experimentation. He described how strange people had taken his blood and injected different solutions into him. They had treated him roughly, giving him kicks or slaps when he had done something wrong. He always was denied food during procedures, which he hated. He said that he was frightened of the men who hurt him, and so he ran away from them after the plane had landed.

          “Where did you go?” Mari asked.

          “Even though I couldn’t speak English, I found a family that gave me a ride to Vermont. Well, I hid in the trunk of their car, but… Anyway, then I took a train that took me to Washington D.C., and I was found by a policeman who took me to the foster care home!” Kaworu said.

          Shinji and Mari were hanging onto every word of his unbelievable story.

          “I knew I was different as I grew up. I never got sick, and I found that I had the ability to turn off my feeling of pain any time I desired. Remember when I broke my arm after that baseball game in middle school?” Kaworu asked Mari.

          “Yeah,” She said.

          “I didn’t cry, because it didn’t hurt. I made it so that it didn’t,” Kaworu said. Mari whistled, impressed and a bit jealous.

          “I also used to be able to make electricity, so I could charge my phone and video game devices anywhere I was.”

          “Lucky!” Mari said.

          Kaworu kept on describing his various abilities for ten minutes. He finally finished talking after a half hour. The sun was beginning to lower in the sky, coloring the sky with oranges and yellows.

          “So, that’s all of how I knew I was an alien!” Kaworu said.

          “Wow… but, why didn’t you tell me any of this?” Mari asked. Kaworu rubbed the back of his neck.

          “I… don’t really know. I wanted to, many times, but I couldn’t give you the news in the heat of the moment. I thought you wouldn’t believe me..”

          “Well, it is kind of strange,” Shinji said, his first time speaking up since Kaworu had started.

          “Extremely strange!! Very, very strange!” Mari said. “I wonder what I would have done with the knowledge that my best friend was an alien…”

          Kaworu laughed.

          “We would have gotten into more mischief, for sure,” Kaworu said. Mari gasped.

          “Can you imagine it?! The pranks we could have pulled!! Ahhhh, wasted opportunities, wasted opportunities!” Mari said, her voice filled with regret. Kaworu started laughing again. His body bent forwards in mirth as he held his stomach.

          At 5:49 p.m., the three reached the city. They headed left, and happened luckily upon the city’s government building after walking thirty minutes. In front of the building lie two panels filled with assorted brochures. They all grabbed a few, trying to find were Sakae was.

          “Ah! I found a map!” Mari said. Shinji and Kaworu stopped flipping through their own leaflets. Mari opened up the map. She pointed to the city they were in.

          “Here’s where we are.”

          “Oh, and here’s Sakae. It’s four miles northwest of here,” Shinji said. He followed the roads to Sakae with his finger, memorizing their layout.

          “Let’s go, we won’t have too long until it’s night time,” Kaworu said.

          “Well, it’s… Oh wow, it’s six-thirty already! It’ll be dark really soon,” Mari said.

          “Then, should we spend the night here?” Kaworu asked.

          “I think that there’s a group of houses near the edge of town, we could stay there,” Shinji said. He wracked his brain to remember what he could about them. He knew that the housing district he’d passed by with Kensuke had walkers, but they could probably find an open house.

          Shinji led them to the groups of houses. He passed by the house with a children’s playground in front of it, and he pointed out the house that he and Kensuke had entered before on their scavenger mission.

          “So, you guys did scavenger missions? That sounds cool,” Mari commented.

          “Our group was in one place, so they had to go outside a lot, right, Shinji?” Kaworu asked.

          “Yeah. We used to have two missions a week. Man, that seemed like so long ago…” Shinji said. Those times, when Asuka and Hikari went out frequently and he was stuck inside, seemed so boring. However, he missed the safety of those times.

          “We used to travel around, me and Kaworu,” Mari said.

          “That must have been hard, traveling in a foreign country…” Shinji said. Mari half-shrugged.

          “It was alright, I guess. We weren’t able to read a lot of road signs, but we made it work. We didn’t know where we were going, anyways. I guess it would have been the same in America,” Mari said.

          The streets were eerily quiet and absent of any lurkers. Shinji kept his guard up, ready to warn any of them if he spotted anything move.

          They passed by quite a few houses, but none of them seemed to catch their eye.

          “That one,” Mari said, breaking the silence. She pointed at a purple two-story house. Shinji and Kaworu looked at it, appraising its value.

          “Its balcony is connected to the house next door, so even if we’re ambushed, we can get away,” Mari said. She crossed her arms.

          “Sure, let’s go in,” Kaworu said.

          Shinji agreed that it was a nice house. They searched through all of the rooms, expecting something to jump out. However, nothing came at them.

          After they had determined the whole house to be deserted, night time had fallen. Kaworu went to work searching through the kitchen and making them some dinner. Mari helped Shinji bring bed sheets and blankets from the bedrooms downstairs. They created a fort of pillows and blankets, and they got ready to settle down for the night.

          “Dinner is done!” Kaworu announced. He handed Mari and Shinji a granola bar, giving Shinji the only bar with chocolate pieces. Shinji smiled at him, thankful for the treat. He also opened two large bags of chips, and the three emptied them out in little time.

          “I’m still hungry, is there anything else?” Mari asked.

          “Well, I found two cans of pears and a can of fruit cocktail. Do you want me to cut them open?” Kaworu asked.

          “Nah, just bring them here,” Mari said. After Kaworu brought them over, she used her trusty knife to open them.

          Mari took the fruit cocktail, and she gave the pears to the boys. They ate all of the fruit and then drank the clear syrups.

          Mari settled into bed first. She grabbed two of the heaviest blankets, and she snuggled right into them. Only the top of her head poked out of her blankets. She began snoring after a few minutes, seeming content in her blanket nest.

          Shinji laid down in the blankets, and Kaworu followed suit. Kaworu burrowed himself in the sheets between the two, and he wrapped his arms around Shinji. They spooned, with Shinji’s face buried into the warmth of Kaworu’s chest.

          “Good night,” Kaworu said.

          “Good night,” Shinji replied. He kissed Kaworu’s cheek, and he made himself comfortable.

          It was an easy night.


	9. Mari and Shinji Eat All the Food

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shinji, Kaworu, and Mari finally reach Sakae. Mari doesn't know the socially acceptable way to share peanut butter. Shinji learns something new about Misato before the apocalypse started.

          Shinji woke up to the sound of Mari getting up. After a few seconds of wiping his eyes and wondering what time it was, Shinji realized that Mari’s careful, slow movements meant that she was trying not to wake up either him or Kaworu. It was nicely considerate of her, but Shinji felt a bit mischievous. He didn’t know if it was Kaworu’s arms wrapped around his waist, but he felt emboldened enough to grab Mari’s ankle as she walked by him. Immediately afterwards he closed his eyes and made his expression as neutral as possible, feigning sleep.

          Mari screamed, just like he expected. It was shrill, yet over only a few seconds later. Holding back a laugh, Shinji counted to thirty in his head and hesitantly cracked one of his eyes open. Mari’s hands were clasped around her mouth, and she was staring at the ground with intense confusion on her face.

          For a moment Shinji felt like he had made a huge mistake, for Mari’s eyes were slits, and they looked almost bloodshot. He heard her breathing heavily, obviously panicked.

          In the time Shinji was staring at her, Mari seemed to manage to notice Shinji’s eyes open. Trying to not freak her out further, he tried to close his eyes as quickly as he could after he knew he had been caught. He stayed there with his eyes squeezed tight, his ears straining to hear any movement that Mari made. He expected her to yell at him, or at least say something, but everything was silent.

          For a split second, Shinji felt the blankets pull from beneath him. Kaworu’s arms fell from his waist, and his legs untangled with Kaworu’s, until he felt himself being rolled around. Shinji opened his eyes, surprised. Mari had pushed him into the blankets where she and Kaworu had been laying on, effectively trapping him inside a blanket burrito. Mari squatted down to Shinji’s face. Shinji couldn’t do anything but glare at her upside-down.

          “Hah!” Mari laughed, flicking Shinji’s nose. “That’s what you get!”

          “What? What happened?” Kaworu slurred, his words coming out sluggishly in his unawake state. Kaworu yawned, covering his open mouth with one of his pale hands.

          “Kaworu, help me!” Shinji pleaded. He couldn’t see Kaworu from where he was laying, but he knew that Kaworu would untangle him from inside his blanket trap.

          Shinji heard footsteps from behind him. He took that to believe that Kaworu was going to come to his rescue, but Mari stepped in front of Kaworu and the footsteps stopped.

          “He grabbed my foot in the darkness! I thought it was a lurker coming from below, or a ghost, or an evil spirit that’s coming for vengeance! I thought I was gonna die!” Mari yelled to Kaworu, her fright reverting her back to speaking in English.

            “I see…” Kaworu said. He stood silent, thinking about what to do next. He could come to Mari’s defense and berate Shinji, but the thought of hurting him made him feel terrible. He’d rather die than see him hurt by his own doing, so he wasn’t even going to entertain the notion. The second option was to go to Shinji’s side and explain to Mari that he was truly joking, but… he knew that Shinji was in the wrong here. Scaring people wasn't funny anymore. It brought back bad memories and nightmares.

            Without much further thought, Kaworu bowed his head to Mari.

          “I’m sorry. Shinji shouldn’t have done that to you,” Kaworu apologized.

          “Damn right,” Mari scoffed. A ghost of her usual cat smile returned back to her face, though.

          After apologizing, Kaworu immediately whipped around to face Shinji. He noticed the flash of sadness on Shinji’s face before Shinji put up his own defenses again.

          'Jesus, how many times is he going to break my heart?' Kaworu sighed inwardly. He fought the urge to gnash his teeth, and instead plastered a smile on his face.

          “There, I apologized for you, Shinji. So, you don’t need to feel bad about this, okay? Mari forgives you, right?” Kaworu said, his voice soft and soothing. He tilted his head to meet Mari’s eyes. With his face turned away, he motioned with his eyes to Shinji, trying to convey his message to Mari.

          He hadn’t needed to worry, though, for Mari was the smartest person he knew- and she was wonderful at interpreting unspoken messages and reading the air.

          “I forgive you, Shinji,” Mari said. Her lips upturned in a smile.

          Shinji unconsciously relaxed his body at her words. Kaworu noticed it, and he thought it was cute. He loved how innocent Shinji still was.

          Kaworu sometimes thought of the past sensations of needles that poked his body and went through his skin, and the annoying, steady beating of his heart monitor that always made it hard for him to go to sleep. Life in the laboratory, as little more than a test subject for humankind’s pleasure, was awful.

          Meeting Shinji has more than made up for it, though. If the apocalypse ever did end, he and Mari would have to bring Shinji back to New York. He wanted to show Shinji his home.

          Off in his own little world, Kaworu mused over what kinds of movies Shinji would have liked as the other two got ready in silence.

          Still a bit on edge, Shinji gathered up the blankets and his backpack. He folded up the blankets with more force than he would have used on a normal day. Then, a thought occurred to him.

          "Should we take any of the blankets with us?” Shinji asked. “Do you think we’ll need them? Will we get cold?”

          “I dunno,” Mari answered. “It won’t be winter for another season, and we have jackets. I think they’d be more of a burden than an asset to keep.”

          Mari wiped off her glasses with her shirt.

          “Besides,” Mari continued. “We’ll hopefully be able to get back with your group soon, and after that we can find a permanent residence to live in. It shouldn’t take more than a week. We can worry about blankets more once we settle down.”

          “Yeah,” Kaworu agreed. He kicked a stack of pillows away to the corner of the room, breaking up the last remnants of last night’s pillow fort. He then walked over to Shinji, who was pulling on socks.

          Shinji felt the familiar sensation of someone staring at him, so he turned around.

          “Your hair is sticking up,” Kaworu commented. Shinji’s hand came up to pat his hair, trying to search for any of the offending strands. He leaned forward to look at his shadow, trying to see his hair in the dark shapes.

          God, he hated how it got like that.

          ‘Who’s that one wizard guy in the movie I saw … Harold? ... Henry? … Harry? … It’s been so long, I can’t remember. He had bad hair too,’ Shinji thought.

          “It’s like you put gel in it,” Kaworu continued. Shinji smiled, remembering his childhood experiments with using his parent’s hair-care products.

          Then, Shinji felt Kaworu’s hand on the right side of his head. It felt… wet?

          “Wait— um… did you just lick your hand and put it on my hair?” Shinji asked, his stomach flipping.

          “Yeah. I was trying to make the strands go down… Did I make you uncomfortable, Shinji?” Kaworu asked, genuinely curious. He was just trying to help… should he have asked him first if putting his saliva on his hair would be all right?

          “A bit, yeah…” Shinji said. His cheeks pink, he tried brushing through his hair again with his fingers to get it flat. After the strands kept jumping back up, he gave up. He would forever be stuck with his unruly hair. Kaworu frowned and walked back to his task.

          The three rummaged through their bags for ten minutes to make sure that they had left nothing behind. Satisfied, with everything in tow, they walked back out into the streets.

          ‘What time is it?’ Mari wondered. ‘It’s still dark out, it can’t be 7 am.”

          Mari looked at her watch, which read 9:57 a.m. She looked overhead, at the sky covered with clouds. The air smelled wet, yet fresh.

          “It’s almost ten,” She said.

          “That late?!” Kaworu gasped. He held up a hand to his face.

          “At least the clouds will give us cover,” Mari mused, swaying back and forth. “It’s not too bad.”

          Mari and Kaworu started ahead. Shivering slightly, and wishing he had Mari’s puffy yellow jacket, Shinji trailed behind them.

          After walking forty minutes northwest, Shinji’s stomach growled.

          “Where are we going to find breakfast?” Shinji asked. Kaworu and Mari looked at him, before starting.

          “Did we really forget to eat?!” Mari asked. She pushed up her glasses with her pointer finger, looking confused.

          Kaworu’s head spun around, looking out for anything moving around them.

          “We can stop for a snack,” Kaworu said. He opened his backpack and dug through it, pulling out packages of instant noodles. He set those meals aside, knowing that they’d have no way of making them for a while. Clicking his tongue, he put his arm back inside, searching for another kind of food. He pulled out his hand again, this time coming up with a small jar half-full of peanut butter. Another dig, and he had an unopened box of salty crackers.

          “Here we go!” Kaworu said, smirking. He opened the box with a plastic-y crunch, and then handed the jar of peanut butter to Mari.

          Without any pause, Mari opened the jar (with the strength of Hulk) and dug her fingers inside. She licked the peanut butter she grabbed, off her fingers. Her face was content, like the cat who had finally got its cream.

          Shinji stared in horror at her.

          ‘That’s incredibly unsanitary!’ He thought. They locked eyes, and Mari offered the peanut butter jar to him with a sincere smile. Shinji’s look of shock nearly made her drop the jar.

          “Jesus, I’m not trying to give you the plague!” Mari said, loudly guffawing. She slapped her knee with her palm.

          Shinji stepped backwards, not wanting to refuse what she was offering, but not wanting to take it.

          “Sorry, thank you, but…” He said, shaking his head and smiling ashamedly.

          Shinji’s Japanese societal teachings had drilled into him hard enough so that he couldn’t force himself to say no directly to her, that much was sure.

          Seemingly reading his mind, Mari said, “You can say no, you know…”

          Shinji’s head came up in shock. Was she psychic?

          “I’m fine!” Shinji asserted, backing away shyly. He shook his head again. “Thank you for the offer!”

          “Shinji, are you a germaphobe?” Kaworu asked, resting his arm on a tree and his face on his hand. Shinji looked at him blankly, not knowing what a “germaphobe” was.

          “I just thought… well… you didn’t like my hand touching you with my spit earlier… and now you don’t want the peanut butter that Mari had, so I just thought… Well, if you are one, that’s okay, Shinji!” Kaworu took Shinji’s hands, the package of crackers in his hand falling to the ground. Shinji was struggling trying to understand the meaning of what he was saying, but Kaworu kept on talking.

          “If you are a germaphobe, I’ll make sure to wash my hands. I’ll not go into the dirt, and not touch your food if you don’t want me too. I’ll also keep my distance if I’m dirty, like if I ever-”

          “What’s a germaphobe?” Shinji asked, cutting Kaworu’s enthusiastic speech short. Kaworu blinked at him, his mouth still open. Kaworu closed it. He cleared his throat.

          “A germaphobe is someone who _really_ doesn’t like germs, or being dirty,” Kaworu explained.

          “Ohhhh,” Shinji replied.

          Mari stared at the two, her eyes moving from one boy to the other. She continued scooping peanut butter in her mouth like popcorn at a movie theater, and she was watching the current showing of some amazing, new flick. Before she had thought about what she was doing, Mari’s fingers touched the bottom of the jar. She had accidentally eaten almost all of the peanut butter. Sweat dropped down her forehead, and she blushed. She had messed up. Big time. Feigning nonchalance, she hid the jar behind her back and smiled. The boys paid her no mind.

          “I guess that’s kind of like me, kind of… but whatever, can I just have something to eat?” Shinji said, exasperated and starving. Kaworu nodded quickly, his hands diving for the crackers. He handed the box to Shinji, who started gobbling up the small crackers.

           Kaworu knelt down to search through his backpack, but caught himself. He turned to Mari.

          “Hey Mari, where’s the peanut butter?” Kaworu asked.

          “I dunno!” Mari said. Her voice came out in a high squeaky squeal.

          ‘Fuck,’ she thought.

          Kaworu narrowed his eyes at her. He took in her face, her body shaking, and her hands behind her back.

          “Mari, can you show me your hands?” Kaworu asked, his eyebrow turned up.

          His question reminded Mari of her dad, which made her smile. She was always trying to get in trouble as a child, because seeing her parents’ expressions was hilarious. Nothing could ever top the prank she pulled at her karate class. She would have to tell that story to Kaworu sometime.

          Mari hummed, but realized that she was caught either way. She showed him her near-empty jar. Kaworu stared at it, almost non-comprehendingly.

          “What,” Kaworu said.

          As Shinji finished the first package of crackers, he sat down on the nearest rock. He listened to Mari’s apologies towards Kaworu, which he only accepted after a few minutes. He opened the second package of crackers, the last one in the box. He found that he was still hungry, so he slowly ate some more of them.

          Kaworu scraped off the last peanut butter in the jar and ate it himself. He disliked the feeling of his teeth sticking together, but he was very hungry.

          “Hey, Shinji, where are the crackers?” Kaworu asked. Shinji stopped chewing mid-bite.

          "Oh, no…” Kaworu moaned. He saw the first empty wrapper laying on the ground, and the half-full cracker package in Shinji’s hand.

          “I’m sorry!” Shinji said, shoving the rest of the crackers at him guiltily. He couldn’t look Kaworu in the eye.

          "It’s…… okay,” Kaworu replied.

          “What!?? What’s with this!” Mari interjected. “Favoritism!”

          “It’s not that!” Kaworu said defensively. His arms came up. “He didn’t eat all of the crackers!”

          “Yeah, but weren’t the crackers more important?” Mari argued. “You can’t get full off of a spread of peanut butter, because it was just supposed to be a topping for the crackers.”

          “I think you might be right,” Kaworu replied. He turned to look at Shinji.

          “Well, isn’t peanut butter full of protein, like meat? People recommend that you eat it for breakfast, because it fills up your stomach,” Shinji explained.

          “That’s true…” Kaworu said. He turned to look at Mari.

          “Yet, aren’t crackers full of carbohydrates? Those sugars help your body create energy!” Mari debated.

          “I remember that, yeah!” Kaworu said. He turned to look at Shinji.

          ‘Wait,’ Kaworu thought.

          “Yes, but-” Shinji started.

          “Wait!” Kaworu stopped him. “We’re wasting time, we still have ten miles left to go!”

          “Shit. Yeah,” Mari said.

          Kaworu split up the last half of the crackers between him and Mari. He grabbed a water bottle, and let Shinji have the first sip. Kaworu and Mari scarfed down their “breakfast” and both took long drinks of water. After that, Kaworu threw the garbage on the ground.

          “Let’s keep walking,” Kaworu said.

          They kept walking for three hours. Nothing disturbed them, but they started feeling the light droplets of rain sprinkling on them.

          “Oh, crap,” Mari said.

          They reach an opening in the forest. They saw roads and buildings, and a rust-covered train lying in front of the path they’re supposed to take. They walked up to the train.

          “Should we go through the train?” Shinji asked.

          “No, we should go around it,” Kaworu replied. Mari clapped him on the shoulder.

          “Come on, where’s your sense of adventure?” Mari asked, smirking. Kaworu pointed to a headless dead lurker, its corpse lying face-down on the ground ten feet away. Mari stuck out her tongue at him.

          “We’re going to get rained on, anyway. Might as well try and find some cool treasure,” Mari reasoned. She grabbed her knife, and slid open one of the train car doors.

          Kaworu shrugged, giving up. She was right.

          “Do you still have the machete?” Kaworu asked Shinji.

          “Yeah,” Shinji said. He opened his backpack and found the machete. He noticed that the knife had ripped open a portion of the inside stitching. He needed to get a case, or a holster, or something for it. He handed it to Kaworu.

          They hopped into the train car. Lifted up, off of the ground, they only had to worry about lurkers in the closed or locked train cars. The lurkers in the open cars would have inevitably fell out, and moved far away.

          Mari, in front, searched through the first car. Other than splatters of blood on the seats, and what looked like a foot, the car was empty. She tapped on the small window of the car in front of them.

          Like an ugly warning, a lurker walked to the glass behind the door. It stared at Mari. It slapped the porthole-window with a faded gray hand.

          “Yo, this girl must have been rich,” Mari whistled. “I saw gold rings.”

          Shinji knocked on the porthole-window on the car behind them. After nothing happened, he looked to the other two. He had no weapons that he could use, so they had to go first.

          Kaworu stepped forward. He passed by Shinji and took hold of the doorknob. Shinji thought he felt something.

          “Hey! Did you just touch my butt?” Shinji asked, his neck and ears flushed. Kaworu winked at him, and turned his head so that their faces were only a few centimeters apart.

          “Yes,” Kaworu answered, rubbing their noses together in a quick eskimo kiss. Shinji stared into Kaworu’s eyes, then blinked and caught himself.

          Hiding his smile from Shinji, Kaworu opened the door and stepped inside.

          Having watching the exchange, Mari thought, ‘Damn, I better get a girlfriend.’

          They entered another seating area. Mari tried to open a closed suitcase overhead compartment, but it was locked.

          “Damn, I wish I had a bobby pin,” Mari said. “Or a paper clip.”

          ‘Wait, weren't this backpack’s original owners Asuka and Hikari? They went on the scavenger missions, so perhaps they left a bobby pin inside,’ Shinji thought. He combed through the inside of his backpack with his hands, trying not to displace the medicine and materials there. He felt something, and he pulled out a purple bobby pin.

          “Wow!” Mari exclaimed. Shinji handed the pin to her, which she accepted excitedly.

          “I might be a little rusty at picking this, so give me twenty minutes,” Mari said. She stood on her tiptoes and fumbled with the lock.

          “You sure?” Kaworu asked.

          “Of course. I have a good feeling about this,” Mari assured him.

          Kaworu trusted her, so he went to the door of the next car and tapped on the glass. Nothing forthcoming, he cautiously opened the door. They heard the sound of rain hitting the top of the car in full force.

          Inside the car, there were a lot more seats of less-quality fabric.

          “I see… so, this must have been the business class seating,” Kaworu said.

          “What do you mean? Were there different seating placements for people on the train according to their classes?” Shinji asked.

          “Yeah, they used to have it where people could pay for better seats and food on trains, and airplanes too,” Kaworu explained.

          “Really?” Shinji said. “That sounds so cool…”

          “I never got to try first-class,” Kaworu said. He sighed.

          “I only came here with Mari because her family had relatives here,” Kaworu continued.

          “Are they still alive?” Shinji asked. Kaworu shrugged.

          “Who knows? We visited them, but the lurkers started coming and we were separated from her parents. We can’t read a lot of kanji, so it was impossible for us to understand how to get back to them,” Kaworu said. He looked regretful.

          “If you remember the city where they were staying in, I could help you two get there,” Shinji offered.

          Kaworu smiled.

          “I’d love that. Mari would too,” Kaworu said.

          “I’ll teach you kanji, too,” Shinji said, with conviction. He puffed out his chest.

          “That would help a lot,” Kaworu laughed. Shinji thought he looked beautiful when he did that.

          Mari opened the door behind them.

          “I got it open! You have to see this, I think it’s Minato’s suitcase!” Mari yelled and shut the door.

          “Minato?” Shinji questioned. Kaworu looked puzzled, as well.

          He and Kaworu followed her back into the other compartment.

          Mari sat on a row of seats, a woman’s briefcase laid open in front of her. She held up a picture of Misato.

          “See! That Minato woman was the original owner of the suitcase!” Mari said proudly.

          “Her name is Misato,” Shinji corrected. He pointed to the writing on the back of the photograph, which said Misato.

          “Oh… awkward,” Mari said. She cleared her throat.

          Shinji went through the clothes in Misato’s suitcase. He couldn’t believe such a coincidence—that they had found a connection to Misato’s former life by accident. Misato never said anything about her previous life, just that she had been friends with Aoba and Hyuga.

          He found another photograph, this time of a relaxed Misato standing next to a tall man with a ponytail. His arm laid across her shoulder. They both shared small smiles, and matching bead necklaces. 

          “Was this her boyfriend?” Mari asked, peeking over Shinji’s shoulder.

          “Maybe.” Shinji said. He put the photo in the side pocket of his backpack, and he kept going through the case. He found a gold watch hidden under a blue bra. On the metallic side of the watch, the initials M. K. were carved in.

         “I’m going to give this back to her,” Shinji said. The watch looked high-grade and expensive, and he knew that she had probably missed it.

          The only things left in the suitcase were clothes, toiletries, and a can of walnuts. Shinji took out the can of walnuts and checked the expiration date.

          “They’re still good,” Shinji said. Mari clapped her hands happily.

          “Nice! Now gimme gimme.” Mari reached for the can, and Shinji handed it to her. Mari then leaned forward to grab Misato’s ziplock bag full of pads and tampons.

          “Hold this,” She told Kaworu, who took the ziplock bag without blinking. Shinji’s eyebrows raised. He had been embarrassed, in the colony, thinking about Asuka’s periods and the things she needed, but Kaworu’s expression didn’t change. Kaworu just looked at the pads. Shinji thought he was so cool.

          “Hey, they have wings. That’s the kind you love,” Kaworu told Mari. Mari grinned.

          “Score!” Mari said. “I’m tired of throwing away good underwear.”

          Mari ate a handful of nuts. She wiped off her mouth with the back of her arm. Kaworu held out his hands, and Mari poured out a generous handful of nuts for him. She then passed the can back to Shinji, and they shared the can. The steady noise of the rain falling overhead had dimmed. Mari noticed so, and she opened the door to the other side of the street.

          “Hey, the rain’s gone!”

          Mari stepped into the sunshine. She stretched her arms and yawned.

          The boys stepped out as well. Together again, they walked further into the town. They passed by a Buddhist temple, and Mari and Kaworu stopped to admire it.

          “It’s so huge…” Mari said, her mouth open.

          “Shinji,” Kaworu turned to his love. “Are you a Buddhist? Were you?”

          “No, I wasn’t religious,” Shinji said. Kaworu nodded, and turned back to looking at the height of the building.

          Facing forward, Shinji was the only one to notice a shadow’s movement inside the temple.

          Whispering, Shinji warned them.

          “I saw something move. Keep your voices down, we might not be alone after all.”

          Both Kaworu and Mari stiffened and looked in front of them. They searched for any other movement.

          “I don’t see anything anymore, let’s keep moving,” Shinji said. Honestly, he was a bit scared. The uncertainty of a lurker being there, or a human that could try to hurt them, was frightening.

          The three kept on moving. Shinji found the city’s town hall, and he led the other two inside. The wood building looked homey, but its outdated news bulletins and ad postings were foreign to the kids.

          Shinji searched for any brochure or map of the city. Inside a panel of brochures, he found a brochure that listed the attractions of the city.

          “What are you doing, Shinji?” Kaworu asked.

          “I’m trying to see if I can get a list of all the temples in the city,” Shinji replied, reading the papers.

          “Why?” Mari asked.

          “Kensuke yelled about a temple…” Shinji said, trailing off. “Huh. I guess there’s only two. The one we passed, and one called the Ryukaku-ji. The Ryukaku-ji is five blocks away from here, so let’s try going back to the other one we saw first.”

          “Okay,” Kaworu agreed. Shinji stored away the brochure in his backpack for future reference, if they needed its map.

          They walked back five minutes, reaching the temple.

          “Should we try calling out to someone?” Mari whispered. “If there’s lurkers, we can always run away.”

          Shinji and Kaworu nodded.

          Shinji cleared his throat. If they were there, they would recognize his voice first.

          “Misato?” He said, his voice wavering a bit.

          Two beats of silence ensued. Then, Hyuga’s head popped out from one of the pillars. He was holding a handgun in his arms.

          “Holy shit,” Hyuga whispered. He beamed, readjusted his nerdy spectacles, and looked behind him.

          “Misato!” Hyuga yelled.


	10. A Trip Down Memory Lane

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shinji reunites with all of the people from the museum. Nobody from the museum's group can seem to remember Mari's name, but she does find out that many of them knew her uncle. Shinji has a painful experience.

          As summoned, Misato’s head peeked from around the corner of the entryway. She had her pistol between her hands, but her arms were lowered and relaxed. She stared at Shinji, Kaworu, and Mari like she had no idea what she was seeing. Ecstatic, Shinji raised up his hand in hello, and Misato promptly flew over and enveloped him in a hug.

          Against his will, Shinji grunted. Misato’s hold on him was enough to make him unable to breathe. Even so, he simply patted her arm. However, his face grew blue with the lack of oxygen. Right before he decided he had to squirm out of her arms, for fear of suffocation, she let go. Shinji doubled-over, taking several loud breaths.

          “Oh! I’m sorry! Are you alright?” Misato apologized. She bent down to look in Shinji’s face. Her thin eyebrows were scrunched up in concern.

          “Really, I’m-” Shinji coughed. “Fine.”

          Misato thankfully gave him a few more seconds to catch his breath. Shinji stood up, feeling embarrassed. He played with the hem of his jacket cuff with his hand, not sure what to say next.

          Hyuga grinned, and he went back inside to take Misato’s post.

          Misato smiled, in both apology and thanks, at him. Shinji took the time to appreciate how she had changed her look. Misato had changed out of her plainclothes and into a shiny, fashionable red jacket. It made her look professional, like she was an office worker or a government worker or something. At least, that was what Shinji thought.

          A girl with long brown hair, curled into loose ringlets, appeared next to Misato. The girl peered out from the side of Misato’s hip. Her cheeks were powered red with blush and her lips were shiny, as if someone had applied a sheen of lip gloss onto them.

          “Sakura?” Misato asked, kneeling down. “What’s wrong? Are you hungry?”

          The girl nodded.

          Misato stood up, smoothing out her skirt.

          “I want more donuts,” Sakura said, blinking. Shinji noticed that her lashes had clumps of mascara in them. All of the make-up looked weird on her, being just a little girl.

          As if she had just heard what he had thought, Sakura turned to stare at Shinji. She smiled.

          “Ah, are you feeling better, Sakura?” Shinji asked. He dropped to his knees to talk to her at eye-level. Sakura moved closer to him.

          “Yeah,” Sakura said, her voice quiet.

          “I’m glad. Do you remember me?” Shinji asked.

          Sakura, with her leg nearly cut-open, her concussion, and some of her ribs cracked from the accident, had been sleeping most of the time back in the museum shelter. Even when she had been awake, and Shinji had been visiting her room, her eyes were usually red and puffy with sleepiness, and her voice sometimes had a slurred quality to it. Shinji wondered if she could have remembered him.

          “Mm. I remember you,” Sakura said. Her voice held no affliction, not either happy or angry to see him again, but her eyes softened.

          Shinji stood up, bumping into Kaworu. He smiled sheepishly at him, but Kaworu just shook his head, showing it was no big deal.

          “You were nice,” Sakura continued, still talking to Shinji. “You brought me food sometimes.”

          Shinji shoved his hands in his pockets, a bit embarrassed. He prepared to reply, but he was cut off.

          “Sakura!”

          At the female voice, Sakura stepped away from Shinji and towards the entryway.

          Asuka came out of the door, her face flushed and irritated. On closer inspection, her flushed face was also covered with blush, the same shade of red as Sakura’s. Her eyes also held some blue eyeshadow, which contrasted greatly with her orange hair. She wasn’t wearing mascara like Sakura was, but her lips were tinted with lipstick. Some of the lipstick applied had gone off her lips, and across her cheek and chin, like an untrained child had tried to put it on for her.

          In one of Asuka’s hands was a hairbrush, filled with hair strands. Her other hand held a headband, and her wrists were covered with multi-colored ponytails.

          “I was only half-done with your braid! Now it’s come all undone!” Asuka clicked her tongue and brushed Sakura’s hair with her fingers.

          Sakura giggled, as if she found Asuka’s anger funny. However, she obediently stayed in place as Asuka played with her hair again.

          It was that time that Asuka noticed Misato, and then she turned to see Shinji. Asuka scowled, and then huffed.

          “It took you forever to get here!” Asuka said sweetly, “We _all_ missed you!”

          Her voice dripped with bitterness and sarcasm. Shinji thought that she must have not missed him in the slightest. Asuka’s smirk proved that point.

          Misato flicked Asuka’s forehead.

          “Ow!” Asuka yelped. She rubbed her forehead with her hand dejectedly. When Misato turned her back to her, she stuck her tongue. She then leaned over Sakura to re-do her hair.

          “Anyway… We’re glad to see you back, Shinji. Kaworu and…. Mei, too. Honestly,” Misato assured, addressing the three kids in front of her.

          Shinji turned back to Mari, feeling embarrassed about Misato’s mistake.         

          Smiling pleasantly, Mari didn’t correct Misato. Shinji slowly turned back, but his cheeks were still tinged pink. How embarrassing!

          “Wait a moment-- Where’s wonder girl?” Asuka asked, the question coming from out-of-the-blue. She pulled up one of her ponytails, and set to tie back her own hair. She kept one of her ponytails in her mouth as she shaped her hair with both of her hands.

          “Ah?” Misato gasped, remembering as well. Her mouth opened into an ‘o’ shape, and her brow furrowed. “Yeah, why isn’t Rei with you three?”

          Shinji, Kaworu, and Mari paused, thinking. Shinji didn’t want to break the depressing news to them that she would never come back. Kaworu didn’t know Rei that much, so he felt like he shouldn’t talk first. Mari was glad that the Lillith girl had Rei again, so she might have a voice of reason to stop tormenting other survivors. She felt a little bad at thinking that, but it was the truth.

          “You didn’t find her?” Asuka assumed, her voice muffled by the fabric in her mouth.

          “We found her, but…” Shinji answered. “Um…”

          “She decided to join the group that kidnapped her,” Kaworu clarified, finishing Shinji’s sentence.

          “But why?” Misato asked. She looked to the three kids, not only puzzled but disappointed.

          “The leader of the group was her sister,” Mari said detachedly, her arms folded behind her shoulders. “That’s why.”

          “Really? I guess that’s… That’s too bad, though…” Misato said, her voice becoming softer as she spoke. She heaved a heavy sigh.

          “You’re sure she won’t come back?” Misato tried, almost certain of the answer she would receive. “Ever?”

          “Yes,” Shinji said. Misato smiled sadly.

          “I understand… Let’s hope she’s happy with her sister, then. It’s all we can do,” Misato said. Nobody followed up on her statement.

          Shinji felt around in his pocket for the pencil that Rei gave him. He inwardly breathed a sigh of relief when he felt the cool wood of it against his palm. He hoped they could meet again, somehow. Someday.

          Misato broke the silence.

          “Well, everyone else will want to see you,” Misato said, half-smiling at Shinji, Mari, and Kaworu. She clapped her hands to look excited, but when she looked back, her expression fell.

          Off to the side, Asuka finished her side-ponytail and tied a hairband around it. She then grabbed Sakura’s hand.

          “Hm. It’s just about time for lunch, isn't it, Asuka?” Misato asked.

          “Yeah. I’m hungry,” Asuka answered.

          “Me too,” Sakura piped up.

          “You wanted donuts, yeah?” Asuka asked Sakura.

          “Yes, please!” Sakura said, her face lighting up with uncontained joy.

          Sakura and Asuka headed back into the building, Sakura clinging onto Asuka’s arm like a little sister.

          “Why don’t you three just follow me, okay?” Misato said.

          Misato led the three children into the temple, past a set of stairs and large open rooms. The tatami mat flooring was hard, yet the floor under it creaked with every step they took. Shinji imagined that it would be hard for outsiders to sneak up on the group. But, what if someone had to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night, and they were mistaken as a lurker? Shinji swallowed.

          Misato opened the sliding door to a large room with nothing but a few paintings, a large wooden table, and seven people lounging around. As they entered, they attracted the attention of all of the occupants. There were loud gasps, and everyone stood still. Toji and Kensuke, with their loud arguing interrupted, even froze in their game of cards. Toji dropped the card that he was holding, an ace of spades. It fluttered to the ground.

          "Oh my god!” Hikari yelled, standing up. “Shinji! Kaworu! Mi…. rin!”

          Mari snorted. Shinji inwardly was, again, mortified.

          Hikari embraced Shinji and then Kaworu in a hug. Before giving Mari one too, she looked back to Asuka, asking her girlfriend if giving Mari a hug was all right.

          Asuka looked confusedly at her. But, she realized why Hikari was hesitating after a few seconds, and she nodded. Both Shinji and Kaworu saw the way she smiled after Hikari had turned around and hugged Mari, too. She had been happy that she had been asked, and it was her decision.

          Kaworu saw the way that Mari sneakily leaned her chest closer to Hikari’s as they hugged to feel her breasts against hers. He didn’t comment on it, but he did lock eyes with her. Mari smiled and tilted her head in mock-innocence. Kaworu shook his head at her, but he smiled unconsciously.

          “How did you find us?” Hikari asked, separating from Mari.

          Hikari pushed back her hair with her hand. Her bangs had been brushed down into her face, and they laid very close, only a few centimeters above, her eyes. The rest of her hair, normally in two neat ponytails, had been braided into one long braid. The braid was messily done, with strands of hair falling out.

          Shinji expected it was Asuka’s doing. Mari wanted to fix it, because it was bugging her. She knew she could make a better one really fast. Kaworu was struggling to remember Hikari’s name.

          “We followed a map of the city and visited all of the city’s temples,” Shinji answered.

          “Wow!” Hikari exclaimed. “That’s really brave, being on your own… I’m glad you found us!”

          Shinji, Kaworu, and Mari matched Hikari’s grin.

          “It’s good to see you guys again,” Aoba said, agreeing.

          “It’s good to know that everyone is safe,” Shinji said, letting out some of the stress he wasn’t aware that he was holding in.

          “Ah! Food, food, food,” Misato said, remembering why she had come into the temple with them. She breezed out of the room.

          Aoba and Hyuga started setting up plates for everyone. While there was no fancy silverware, they pulled out wooden, throw-away chopsticks for everyone to use in the meantime.

          Shinji sat down at the table, right next to Hikari and Asuka, his hands folded politely on his legs. Kaworu sat down next to him, cross-legged. Mari plopped herself next to Kaworu, toeing off her shoes. Mari laid her head on the table, and closed her eyes.

           Out of the corner of his eye, Shinji noticed Toji and Kensuke return to their card game. They whispered to themselves, and Toji caught Shinji’s staring.

          “What?” Toji asked, his voice a low, gruff, irritated bass.

          “Nothing,” Shinji answered. He didn’t want to start anything. He liked how sociable the atmosphere seemed to have been.

          “Then don’t stare at us,” Toji quipped, shuffling his hand annoyedly. He turned back with a flourish at Kensuke, pointedly ignoring Shinji. Shinji hummed, then looked at Kaworu. Kaworu was studying the architecture of the near-bare room. His hand was a few centimeters away from Shinji’s, so Shinji moved his hand to rest on Kaworu’s. Kaworu’s shoulders hitched, and he glanced at Shinji, but he relaxed and smiled after a second.

          Behind them, Toji scoffed. It was done under his breath, but in the near-silent room, everyone heard it.

          The door of the room slid open, and Misato heaved a heavy jug into the room. With a grunt, she placed it near the table. Almost on command, all of the original people inside stood up and walked to a corner of the room. They lined up in front of a stacked pile of plastic cups. Aoba handed them each a cup. The cups had their respective names on them, written with permanent marker.

          “We have extras,” Aoba said, handing out the last of the cups. He grabbed three blank cups and handed the pile to Kaworu, who divided them to his best friend and boyfriend.

          Everyone passed in their cups, and Misato filled them all with the water from the jug.

          “It’s a mixture of rainwater and bottled water,” Hikari informed the three new kids. She sipped her drink.

          “We can’t use the pond water because it looks like shit. Plus, tons of fish poop,” Asuka added.

          Misato shot her a glare, because Sakura was sitting right next to her. Asuka shrugged.

          “What are we having to eat?” Shinji asked.

          “We can’t make anything like soups or salads yet, so we just have to eat snacks,” Misato said, a bit of guilt tinging her voice.

          Misato walked out of the room and came back with a cardboard box. The box’s label was a cute supermarket dog mascot. She sat down, and from the box, passed around plastic-wrapped bags of chips, pretzels, and meat. Afterwards, she handed over cold noodles to many of the outstretched hands. She also handed a bag of chocolate-covered donuts to Asuka, who passed it on to a happily-bouncing Sakura.

          Sakura tore into the bag with her teeth. She didn’t waste a second before popping a donut in her mouth and licking her fingers with gusto.

          Misato smiled at Sakura’s glee, and then she leaned inwards to whisper to Shinji:

          “Now that she’s been allowed to walk and interact with everyone, she’s feeling a lot better.”

          Shinji nodded, glad for Sakura’s health. She seemed to be making a full recovery.

          The group made small-talk as they ate. Most of it was directed towards Shinji, Kaworu, and Mari, like questions of how they got food, or how the roads were, or if they saw anyone else. After the meal, everyone, with the exception of Hyuga, on watch duty, sat and relaxed.

It was too early for Misato to start assigning chores, Shinji thought. Plus, the temple could have been just a temporary place to stay. There’s not really a way to be protected in an ambush, with no locks on doors or stock of ammo. Other than the backpacks the room occupants wore, and the small pile of stuff in the room, they had no long-lasting supplies.   
  
          “We’re planning of leaving soon,” Mari brought up, speaking to Misato. “Me, Kaworu, and Shinji.”

          “You’re not staying with us?” Misato asked.

          “What?” Hikari asked.

          “We want get to a safer place,” Shinji explained.

          “Where we can live off of the land, like near a fishing spot, or something,” Mari added.

          “We’re not leaving because we dislike you all,” Kaworu clarified.

          “I…” Misato was speechless. She had been taking care of Shinji since she had spotted him, months ago, alone and bleeding. She had been on a scavenger mission. She had seen the then-traumatized Shinji, who wouldn’t speak to anyone or want to get close to anybody, make friends with Rei, Hikari, and then Kaworu. She felt like she had almost been a guardian to him, since he was without friends to help him, unlike Asuka and Hikari or Toji and Kensuke.

          “But! We’ll still be staying for a day or two,” Shinji assured her. “We’re not leaving right away.”

          Aoba coughed.

          “Well, of course you can’t,” Aoba said. “We’ll need to prepare them for the outside world first, right Misato? They’ll need supplies and ammo.”

          Aoba grinned at the three kids, approving of their choice. They were free to do as they chose, and Shinji seemed to fit in so well with the two long-time friends. Sadly, too, the current situation with the ignorant Toji and Kensuke wasn’t healthy for the two boys to come back into.

         “Yes, they’ll need that,” Misato said, still thinking about Shinji leaving. However, she too decided that their decision could be a helpful one, for both Shinji and the group.

         “Oh, and something else,” Shinji said. He dug into the side-pocket of his backpack and pulled out the picture he and the other two had found of Misato with the brown-haired ponytail man.

         “We actually found a picture of you. It was on a suitcase in a train we crossed to get into the city. Weird, huh?” Shinji said, finally grabbing the picture out.

          Shinji stretched out his arm to hand Misato the photo, but Mari suddenly grasped his arm. She swiped the picture and held on to it fiercely. Her eyes travelled quickly all over the man’s face. Her grip on the slim photo became so strong that she dented the sides of it.

          “How—what? What?” Mari asked, stutterin _g_. Her voice shook, as did her hand when she lifted it up to adjust her glasses, which had been slipping down without her permission.

          “How did I not see… oh my god,” Mari moaned.

          “Mari?” Both Shinji and Kaworu asked, one after the other, concerned and worried.

          “You guys. We found a picture of my uncle,” Mari revealed, her eyes finally resting on Kaworu and Shinji.

          “Huh?” Kaworu said. Mari turned back to the photo, spluttering uncharacteristically.

          “I- I didn’t see the guy clearly-- mostly because I didn’t really care about a random stranger’s photograph—but he’s my, oh my god…”

          Curious, Misato stood up and walked behind Mari to see the photograph.

          “Kaji?” Misato asked, her voice both breathless with surprise and heavy with shock as she recognized the man. Mari whipped around to face her.

          “How do you know my…?” Mari asked defensively.

          Then, without a word, Mari’s nose scrunched up, and she concentrated on scrutinizing Misato’s face. After a minute, her whole face relaxed. The ends of Mari’s lips turned upwards in her signature cat-like smile.

          “Huh. How funny! I thought you looked familiar!” Mari said, her brows raised.

          “What?” Misato asked. She tore her gaze away from the photograph to stare at Mari. Mari returned her gaze.

          Mari hummed, her eyes flickering back to Misato and the man’s portrait.

          “I knew I had seen you somewhere. Now, it’s obvious where your face is from,” Misato said cryptically. She sat up straight and bent her body backwards in a stretch. Then, she kept explaining what she knew.

          “Kaji had a photograph of the girl he liked from work hooked onto the sun-visor in his car. I remember looking at the woman every time he took me out for a drive. It was you, Misako,” Mari said, her hand coming up to her head. She pushed her hair out of her forehead, her face open and honest.

          Shinji couldn’t believe the two women. Were names really that hard to remember?

          “It was you,” Mari repeated, almost like she couldn’t believe it. It was a massive coincidence. Incredible, really.

          'Shit like this only happens in stories,' Mari thought.

          “Kaji was my boyfriend,” Misato affirmed, tearing her eyes away from Mari to look again at the photograph in Mari’s hand.

          “Is he still alive?”Misato asked, her tone hopeful.

          “Who knows,” Mari shrugged. “He could be. He could be dead, too.”

          Misato’s face fell. She exhaled.

          “Yes, that also is a possibility,” Misato agreed, her voice tight.

          “I wasn’t with him when the lurkers came, so I truly have no idea,” Mari mused. “But he’s tough. And, too cool to die.”

          Misato smiled, agreeing with her.

          After a beat, Mari put her hand behind her to give the photograph to Misato. It was hers, anyway.

          “I don’t remember him mentioning you,” Misato told Mari. “I'm sorry.”

          “Nah, it’s okay,” Mari said. “He had little reason to tell any of you work buddies about his cool, little niece. I remember him saying that the work he did was really hard, and he was always exhausted.”

          “That’s true, we were,” Misato chuckled. She folded the picture neatly and put it into her pocket, smiling fondly.

          “Weren’t we, Hyuga? Aoba?” Misato asked, turning her attention to the other adults.

           Aoba was smiling wistfully like her, but Hyuga’s expression was hard to read. His frown changed into a small smile, though, when Misato looked at him.

           “It sure was difficult,” Hyuga agreed.

           “The worst!” Aoba laughed.

           “You all worked together?” Hikari asked.

           “Yeah, back before. We were almost government spies,” Misato answered, looking proud.

           “Cool!” Hikari exclaimed.

            Kensuke looked at Misato jealously.

           “We were more computer geeks,” Aoba said. “We would get information from Kaji, our _actual_ spy, on rival government projects. He would send top-secret files about weaponry or sensitive plans to us, and we would send it across the globe.”

          “I helped to encrypt the data so it couldn’t be traced back to us,” Hyuga added with a smug grin.

          “Ritsuko was there, too… what did she do, Misato?” Aoba asked.

          “Ritsuko! Yeah, she was awesome,” Misato laughed. “She helped me debug incoming files, and she even mentored me when I started out. I used to be crap at computers! She was the head of the project to make many of our computer programs. Maya used to look up to her,” Misato said.

          “I miss Maya, she was cool,” Aoba said, leaning back on the table.

          “Ritsuko? Maya?” Shinji repeated.

          Simply hearing the names of his former caretakers triggered something in Shinji’s mind. Without even a pause, his head was filled with images of their faces. He couldn’t get the painful memories of them out of his head, no matter how he panickedly tried.

          Maya smiling. Ritsuko getting mad. Maya laughing at Shinji’s innocent comments. Ritsuko correcting Maya on her wrong pronunciation of the scientific name of a house cat. Maya humming. Ritsuko crying as she remembered her cats that she left behind, abandoned in her house without food or water. Maya swimming in a river, splashing Ritsuko’s legs with the cold water. Ritsuko joining in to Maya’s humming. Ritsuko carrying Shinji on her shoulders. Maya teaching him how to light a fire. Ritsuko. Maya.

          Shinji’s heart wrenched with the near-forgotten memories of love he held for them.

          Against his will, his mind betrayed him. His brain was invaded with the memories of Maya’s plea to run. Ritsuko’s body stuck under a fallen bookshelf. Lurkers were eating Ritsuko alive. He remembered Ritsuko’s screams of pain and anguish. The sounds of meat being cut and chewed, right off of Ritsuko’s arms and legs. How his own legs refused to move. Maya’s abrupt push, making him begin to move. He had started sprinting in the opposite direction, to the back exit of the house. Maya’s screams joined Ritsuko’s, as she had refused to move, and the lurkers had pinned her down as well. The two women made a chorus of agony.

          He couldn’t take this. He wanted to die.

          Maybe if she had just said “Ritsuko,” or “Maya,” Shinji would have thought nothing of it, but…

          A flash of his memories. He remembered how he had wished he could have died with them. He laughed lowly.

          “Hm? Did you say something, Shinji?” Misato asked.

          Shinji started crying, unable to stop himself. His thoughts were scattered and broken, and the gory images wouldn’t fade away no matter how hard he willed them. He scrunched his body into a ball. His arms squeezed around his legs. He felt his circulation being cut, and the sensation was the only thing keeping him to reality.

         “Shinji!” Kaworu yelled, his eyes wide and scared. “Are you alright?!”

          When he didn’t receive an answer, Kaworu’s stomach dropped. What was happening?

          “Shinji?” Asuka asked.

          “Shinji? Shinji?” Hikari asked.

          Shinji’s body had started trembling. Misato reached out a hand, wanting to help. Nobody had any idea what had caused him to act this way.

          Shinji felt a hand on his back. Just the simple touch felt like it was iron-hot and electrifying, and he jumped away. The room spun. Fear overtaking him, Shinji scrambled to his feet. He ran out of the open door.

          Kaworu stood. Mari made to stand up as well, but Kaworu gestured for her to stay sitting.

          “I’ll find him. If I’m not back in half an hour, come and look for us,” Kaworu said.

          Mari nodded, her face grim. Kaworu bolted out of the room.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the long break between these chapters! I went out of the country, and had no Wifi for most of June. To apologize, I kept writing and wrote the next chapter, which is even longer than this one! It'll be up in the next hour.  
> I hope you'll accept my apology. OTL   
> Many thanks!


	11. Shinji Goes for a Swim

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shinji goes swimming. Kaworu tries out some of his cool angel powers. Mari hugs a shark. Kaworu figures out some more kinks he has, and he finally gets to eat more of Shinji's semen. いただきます！

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow. This is nearly 8000 words. Enjoy!

          Kaworu reached the outside of the temple. Hearing nothing, he assumed the worst. He wondered if Shinji had taken for the streets, or if he had been inside one of the temple rooms and he had passed him. He had no idea where to go.

          Suddenly, he noticed someone with dark brown hair walking on the bridge to the side of the temple. It only took a second for him to recognize Shinji’s camo-pattern jacket before he broke out into a sprint to catch up to him.

          Shinji stood on the middle of the bridge, looking blankly down at the green, murky water. He saw an overturned koi fish float on the water. It was dead, like many of its friends.

          Shinji didn’t see the point in living. Everyone would die. Everyone would leave. He would always end up alone.

          With those thoughts repeating like a mantra in his dissociated brain, Shinji heaved himself up onto the railing of the bridge. It was rocky, with bumps for him to hang onto. He thought about letting go, falling into the murky water and never coming up again.

          The idea sounded great. Shinji smiled. His mind registered the sound of someone yelling behind him, but he didn’t register anything else until his body roughly hit the cold water.

          “FUCK! NO!” Kaworu swore, crying heavily. He dove over the banister twenty seconds later, and into the same pond. He hit the water with a heavy crash. He took a second to collect his bearings, then opened his eyes underwater.

          They stung immensely, but Kaworu was able to see a cloudy figure off to his left. He swam towards it, the green water tough to pass through. He hadn’t been swimming in ages, and his arms ached with the unfamiliar exercise.

          Kaworu got close enough to the shape to see Shinji’s dark hair, and with all of the strength, he wrapped his arms around Shinji’s chest and used his feet to kick them to the surface.

          They broke the surface. Kaworu greedily took in gasps of air. Kaworu’s panic and anxiety deepened when Shinji didn’t start breathing like he did. Shinji’s mouth seemed to have been open the entire time underwater, which made matters worse.

          “Shit, no, oh my god, Shinji, no, no,” Kaworu said, his mind jumping to the worst conclusion. He swam as fast as his legs would move him to the edge of the pond. He heaved Shinji onto the shore and hooked his hands under Shinji’s armpits, pulling him fully out of the water. Shinji’s eyes stayed closed. Kaworu couldn’t tell if he was breathing.

          Kaworu pushed on Shinji’s chest with his hands, trying to get his lungs to open up. When no reaction came from Shinji, he placed his lips to Shinji’s and blew air into Shinji’s lungs. He pushed on Shinji’s chest again, frantically waiting for any sign that Shinji was still alive.

          Two things happened at the same time. Shinji coughed, and Kaworu heard a lurker moaning behind him.

          “Shit,” Kaworu swore. He flipped Shinji to his side so he could cough up water. He turned around, and heard Shinji vomiting.

          There were three lurkers advancing towards them. They had been attracted to the two loud splashes from the pond. Kaworu grimaced.

          Meanwhile, Shinji kept emptying his stomach.

          ‘How can I get Shinji back to the temple without running into any of the lurkers?’ Kaworu thought. He spun his head around, searching for anything that could help.

          Instead, he spotted two more groups of lurkers coming for them, each on opposite sides of the pond. They couldn’t swim, or figure out that they could walk around the pond to reach him, but they still were a problem. They could follow them back into the temple.

          “Rahhhhgh,” Kaworu grumbled. How annoying. He didn’t have his gun, or even a knife, with him. His backpack was back inside. So, what was he going to do?

          The only plausible solution was to destroy them all. But, how could he do so without leaving Shinji? How would he bring Shinji back to the temple, anyway?

          Kaworu turned back to Shinji, who was laying, eyes open but clouded-over, on the ground. Kaworu rubbed Shinji’s back. Shinji’s eyes flickered to him, then away, as if ashamed. Kaworu lifted up Shinji’s chest, moving him slightly so his face didn’t rest directly in his vomit. He then gently brushed Shinji’s bangs out of his face.

          ‘At least he’s conscious,’ Kaworu thought, smiling.

          ‘And alive,” Kaworu’s brain added.

          With a sigh, Kaworu stood up. He spotted the three lurkers closest, only 15 feet away. He waited.

          As they came closer, Kaworu called forth his feelings of safety. He projected his orange AT field, something he hadn’t done in a very long time. Even in emergencies, he didn’t like to have others see his powers.

          He could trust Shinji, though. Kaworu smiled.

          Hesitantly, Kaworu walked forward, his AT field shimmering.

          The first of the lurkers stumbled into the AT field, it touched the feelings of anger and fierce protection that Kaworu used to fuel the field. Instead of bouncing off the field, the effects began vaporizing its entire body. As its legs finally broke apart and fell into the other ashes of its body, another lurker came into contact with the field. As with his friend, the lurker broke into pieces until it laid in dust.

          Kaworu felt immensely mentally drained, but he kept up his field until the third lurker had been vaporized. He let the field go, and the scenery in front of him swam. He unsteadily leaned on one foot, taking a break to recover.

          Kaworu checked again on the lurkers on the other side of the pond. He knew that lurkers couldn’t swim, and they didn’t usually try. But, if one had fallen in, would it sink and then float, after its body had decomposed more? Or, would they sink down into the bottom and be trapped there, forever?

          Would people in the future, years after the apocalypse had ended, discover lurkers in the bottom of the ocean?

          All of the rhetorical thinking made him wonder. If just holding up an AT field strong enough to dissipate the lurkers exhausted him after just a minute, could he push the lurkers into the pond? If they sank there, they wouldn’t be any harm to anyone for at least a few months. In the best case scenario, they would stay submerged forever.

          Kaworu stared again at the green, murky depths. He grimaced. The pond had almost killed his boyfriend just a few minutes ago, but now it might save the lives of them and everyone else still in the temple.

          Calmly resolving himself, Kaworu walked around to the other side of the pond. He kept a watch near Shinji, his eye’s going back there constantly, to make sure that no other lurkers emerged from out of nowhere and came near Shinji.

          Right before he came close to another lurker, Kaworu froze. He slapped himself mentally.

          ‘But what if someone else tried jumping in the pond, like Shinji, or even fell? They would be swarmed by lurkers and held down until they drowned!’ Kaworu thought. He angrily stepped backwards and mussed his hair angrily. There was nothing he could do that would work!

          Without time for another plan, Kaworu defensively pulled up his AT field and pushed the lurker away from him.

          His mind raced, trying to figure out any solution.

          ‘What other angel powers do I have?’ Kaworu thought. “I never used anything to harm anyone else.”

          He looked back to Shinji, and saw one of the lurkers advancing towards his prone form. Horrified, Kaworu held up his hand. From his palm, a white beam appeared. It pierced the lurker’s head, which made a loud, revolting sound as it exploded. Shinji flinched, pieces of the lurker’s earlobes and jaw flinging onto his back.

          Kaworu turned back to the lurker barely five feet in front of him. With the same motion, his hand forward, Kaworu blew up the lurker’s head. A haste AT field spared him from being covered in the lurker’s remaining flesh.

          Getting close enough to aim, Kaworu destroyed the four other lurkers lurking near the edges of the pond.

          Kaworu heard shouting from the direction of the temple, but he ignored it as he ran back to Shinji. He wiped off Shinji’s back of flesh and skin, but multiple blood splatters remained.

          “YO THAT WAS COOL!” Mari yelled, in English. Her voice sounded clear, shouted from a few meters away from the bridge. When she got to the bridge, Mari clapped.

          “HOW DID YOU DO THE LIGHT THING?” Mari asked, still pointedly shouting. Mari jumped, her eyes gleaming with excitement.

          “Shh!” Kaworu shushed her, bringing a finger to his lips. They didn’t need any more noise.

          Misato appeared next to Mari, having hurried to the scene as well. Her chest fell and rose with the exercise.

          Kaworu turned back to Shinji. Misato asked Mari on the details of what had happened. Slowly, Kaworu supported Shinji’s back and head with his hands. He pulled Shinji into an upright, sitting position, taking as much care as he could.

          Shinji was able to sit upright. He coughed. Part of his face was covered with the green algae slime that covered most of the pond.

          “I need to wipe your face,” Kaworu said, raising his sleeve. He hoped Shinji would let him touch him. He had the overwhelming need to feel Shinji’s body in his arms and tell him everything was all right, and he wasn’t mad at all. However, Shinji looked away.

          “I can get it,” Shinji said, his voice hoarse. He used his own sleeve to wipe off his forehead, cheeks, and chin. Kaworu still saw the slime on Shinji’s nose, but he sat back down.

          “Are you okay?” Kaworu asked. He didn’t know what else to say.

          Shinji didn’t answer him. He looked down, and in a quiet, raspy voice, said something else.

          “Sorry.”

          “No, no… Shinji, it’s all right, honestly… really…” Kaworu said, stumbling over his words anxiously. Shinji fidgeted and licked his lips, but said nothing.

          “Can I hug you?” Kaworu asked.

          Shinji looked at him with a surprised expression. It seemed to ask him why he’d ever want to hug someone like him. Then, Shinji’s lip trembled, and he started sobbing. Shinji outstretched his arms to Kaworu, like a child desperately asking for comfort.

          Kaworu wholeheartedly embraced him. He started crying as well. Shinji squeezed his back, and Kaworu ran his hands in Shinji’s hair and across the back of Shinji’s neck.

          Kaworu felt elated that Shinji, his wonderful, beautiful, delicate Shinji, was still alive. He was still in his arms, still there to be hugged and loved. Kaworu brushed his face against Shinji’s, getting as close to him as possible.

          Shinji cuddled closer, seeking Kaworu’s warmth. Apologies flew from his cracked lips.

          “I’m so sorry that you had to do that. For me. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry,” Shinji whispered, hiccupping between his words.

          Kaworu shook his head.

          “It’s all right, Shinji. Everything is fine now. You don’t need to apologize to me, I understand,” Kaworu said. He separated himself from Shinji slightly so that they could look at each other.

          “Just tell me why y-” Kaworu was cut off by Misato and Mari, who had scrambled over to where they were sitting.

          “Oh my god, are you all right?” Misato asked, her voice trembling.

          “Why are you both wet?! What happened?” Mari asked, her brows raised.

          Even though he didn’t want to, Kaworu broke apart from Shinji’s hold. His and Shinji’s wet clothes stuck to each other, almost signifying the desire of the both of them to stay embraced.

          “Let’s go back into the temple first. We don’t want any other lurkers to spot us,” Kaworu said.

          “Can you stand?” Kaworu asked Shinji.

          “Yeah,” Shinji said. Using Kaworu a bit as leverage, Shinji stood up.

          The four walked back to the temple. Shinji held onto Kaworu’s arm for support as he walked. The other three slowed their pace, trying not to rush Shinji. From Shinji’s wobbliness to his exhausted, pale face, the women realized that he was in bad shape.

          They arrived at the entryway. Misato gestured to them to follow her, not to the large room with everyone in it, but another smaller, private room. The children sat down.

          “I’ll tell the others that we’re all safe, be back in a second,” Misato said. She disappeared from the room. Shinji yawned.

          “Are you tired?” Kaworu asked Shinji.

          “Yeah,” Shinji affirmed. He rubbed his eyes.

          “Lay down,” Kaworu said.

          “Where?” Shinji looked at him oddly. The room was bare, with nothing but cupboards hanging on the walls.

          Kaworu moved until he was behind Shinji. He spread his legs. Shinji blushed.

          ‘I think I know what he means…’ Shinji thought. ‘Lay down on _him_.’

          Shinji slowly lowered his body until his head rested in Kaworu’s lap. Kaworu grinned. Shinji covered his face with one of his arms, embarrassed.

          No matter how hard he tried, Shinji couldn’t stop himself from thinking about how his head was on Kaworu’s dick. Only two layers separated him from touching it directly. God, he really didn’t need to get aroused right now.

          “You cold?” Mari asked Shinji, seeing him squirm.

          “No… I- uh, I mean yes! Very cold,” Shinji said. “Very cold!”

          Shinji sat up. Mari offered him her jacket. Shinji swiped and took it—way too quickly than he needed to.

          Shinji laid back down. He used her open jacket as a blanket. He made sure it covered the front of his pants, just in case… just in case.

          Kaworu was brushing through Shinji’s hair when Misato returned a few minutes later. Shinji’s eyes were closed, and he was on the verge of falling into dreamland. Almost dying makes a person tired.

          Feeling sorry, Kaworu woke Shinji up by calling his name and lightly shaking his shoulders. Shinji squinted, blinked, and sat up grumpily. Kaworu took care of the fly-away hair that had sprung up by patting down Shinji’s hair. Shinji just grunted.

          “Okay, so let’s start getting everything cleared up,” Misato began. Shinji sat right in front of Kaworu, Kaworu’s chest to his back.

          “First, why did you start… for lack of a better expression, freaking out?” Misato asked.

          When reminded about his former caretakers, and against the temptation, Shinji resolvedly didn’t think about Ritsuko and Maya. He disconnected himself from them, as a way to cope with his lack of closure about his loss.

          “I remembered… well… that… I had two women that cared for me for a while after…” Shinji trailed off, not wanting to tell them everything. He couldn’t bear to reveal to them how he was abandoned by his father.

          “After… the lurkers came, after it all started.” Shinji finished his sentence.

          “Go on,” Kaworu said, noticing his pause.

          “They were named Ritsuko and Maya, a lesbian couple. Hearing their names again reminded me of… the bad memories I had concerning them,” Shinji said.

          “Could it be that… hey, Shinji, what did they look like?” Misato asked. She had received no word about her two missing former friends all throughout the years, so she was eager to know about how they were.

          “Um… Maya was a short woman, with short brown hair. Ritsuko was taller, with blond hair… Oh! She also had a mole near her eye,” Shinji said. He watched Misato’s face for any sign of recognition. He wasn’t disappointed.

          Misato’s mouth and eyes opened. Her body froze in shock.

          “That must have been them! Oh my god! I’m so happy!” Misato said, her feet doing a little dance. She clapped, looking like she could have shouted in glee.

          Shinji grimaced, even though he was trying to smile.

          “What?” Misato said, seeing Shinji’s expression.

          “They’re… dead,” Shinji said.

          “Ah? What?” Misato said. Her arms dropped to her sides.

          “I’m sorry. I just remembered how I saw them die, and it was too much,” Shinji said. He stared at the floor, unable to look at Misato.

          “Oh...” Misato said. She said, “Oh,” again, but it was much quieter.

          “Is that why you ran away?” Mari asked.

          Shinji nodded.

          “How did you get wet?” Mari asked.

          It was silent for a minute. Kaworu decided to answer for him.

          “He p-”

          “I slipped and fell into the pond,” Shinji said. Kaworu furrowed his brow, wondering why Shinji decided to lie. Shinji’s shoulders slumped, and he ignored Kaworu’s questioning gaze.

          “Oh my god! But, how did the lurkers find you guys?” Mari questioned.

          “Kaworu jumped in after me, to try and save me,” Shinji looked up then, smiling at Kaworu. Kaworu slowly nodded his head, accepting his thanks.

          “The sound of us falling into the water attracted the lurkers,” Shinji explained.

          “Ohhh. Yeah, that makes sense,” Mari said. She sat on her hands, listening attentively.

          “So, Kaworu revived me, and then he…” Shinji trailed off, not really understanding what Kaworu had been doing. He had seen flashes of orange out of the corner of his eyes, and beams of white on the other side of the pond, but he hadn’t really paying attention to his surroundings back then.

          “I tried to kill the lurkers with my AT field, which is somewhat like an energy force field made of your emotions, but I started feeling sick,” Kaworu explained. “So, I tried out killing a lurker from far away after one came near Shinji, and I figured out how I could do so.”

          “IT WAS SO COOL!” Mari shouted. She had apparently been holding the thought in, waiting eagerly to butt into Kaworu’s explanation.

          “I saw you killing the last ones! You just reached out your hand and- ZAP!—like flies, the lurkers fell! It was awesoooome,” Mari squealed.

          “Uh… what?” Misato asked, her eyes narrowed. The three kids simultaneously remembered that Misato had no idea what they were talking about-- she hadn’t been there when Kaworu had explained him being an alien, after all.

          “I’m… kind of an alien from outer space. I have powers,” Kaworu said, shrugging. He felt uncomfortable with the weird look that Misato was giving him.

          “Just show her something! She’ll never believe you until you do so,” Mari said, flipping her hair, trying to act like the solution to Kaworu’s problem was obvious.

          “Fine,” Kaworu muttered. He knew fully well that Mari was just dying to see him do something cool again. And to think that she hadn’t believed him until just a few days ago!

          “It’s okay, breathe,” Kaworu said, coming up with an idea.

          “Huh?” Mari said.

          “What?” Misato and Shinji asked.

          Out of nowhere, the room started filling up with water. Rushing in from random parts of the walls, the floor became totally wet. Kaworu stayed sitting, not batting an eye, but the other three people panicked.

          “WHAT?” Misato yelled, standing up quickly.

          “What are you doing?!” Mari asked Kaworu. Kaworu smirked. He stood up as well.

          The water filled up half of the room in less than thirty seconds. It was enough to come up to the kids’ chests.

          “Kaworu?” Shinji asked, his voice small.

          Kaworu realized something with a start.

          “Fuck,” Kaworu swore.

          ‘Your boyfriend just survives drowning and you fucking fill up a whole room with water! Way to go, you idiot!' Kaworu yelled at himself, burying his face in his hands. 'FUCK!'

          Kaworu wordlessly stopped the streams of water.

          “Oh my god, are there fish?!” Mari asked loudly. Kaworu put down his hands.

          “Yeah, I was going to show you all… never mind,” Kaworu scowled. He started draining the water, hating himself.

          “WAIT!” Mari yelled. “I wanna see it!”

          Kaworu stopped draining the water. Mari closed her mouth and dove underwater, wanting to look at the various brightly colored fish swimming.

          Mari noticed that, even though she was submerged, her clothes remained dry. They didn’t hold down her body with water weight, too, which made her free to move. She opened her eyes.

          Before her were schools of fish. Beautiful angelfish, colorful clownfish, hell, there was even a family of turtles swimming down there. Mari laughed, before she coughed in surprise as one of the blue fish waved at her with his fin.

          She realized that even underwater, she could breathe. She stopped holding her breath and swam forward. The fish in front of her swam away, but she still grinned.

          Misato’s face joined hers. When Misato opened her eyes, Mari laughed. Then, Misato’s face when she saw that Mari was breathing made her laugh even harder.

          Mari surfaced, grinning ear-to-ear. She saw Kaworu holding onto Shinji, Shinji’s hand on Kaworu’s chest. She knew she was interrupting their moment, but she was so happy she couldn’t even think rationally!

          “That was so cool!” Mari screamed.

          Kaworu blinked, surprised.

          “Make more fish! More fish, more fish!” Mari chanted.

          “Wha?” Shinji asked.

          “You can breathe underwater! There’s tons of fish!” Mari said, her voice rushed. She dove back under the water again.

          Shinji saw Misato swim in front of him and Kaworu. Even through the moving water, he saw Misato conversing with Mari. They seemed to be laughing.

          “What?” Shinji asked Kaworu.

          “I’m sorry,” Kaworu apologized before even thinking. “I, well, I had the idea before to create a closed room full of water that was breathable in, and filling it with fish and marine wildlife. I thought it would… be cool.”

          Shinji looked back down at Mari and Misato. It did look fun. He shivered with fear, yet his eyes widened with anticipation.

          “Come down with me?” Shinji asked Kaworu. Kaworu’s eyebrows raised.

          “Really?” Kaworu asked, his voice disbelieving. Shinji nodded.

          They both closed their eyes and dove underwater at the same time. Kaworu opened his eyes first. He watched Shinji slowly open his eyes, unsure and terrified. Kaworu smiled at Shinji, signaling to him that he was all right.

          “How is it?” Kaworu asked.

          “What?!” Shinji replied, his brain still confused about how they could speak underwater. Shinji clasped his hands to his mouth, still trying to hold his breath.

          His face alight with joy, Kaworu started filling up the room with water again. Honoring Mari’s request, he then added different varieties of fish.

          Kaworu created some crabs, lobsters, clams, frogs, bluefish, herring, barracuda, a manta ray, a shark, a catfish, and a baby alligator—all harmless of course—to swim in his aquarium.

          “YO!” Mari shouted. She lunged her body forward and petted the shark’s side. Kaworu told the shark to swim near Mari’s chest.

          Mari, seeing how friendly the shark was, gave him a hug.

          Not liking how the tatami floor clashed with his marine wildlife scene, Kaworu replaced it with sand, rocks, and ocean plants. He also made a small patch of coral for his clownfish to find homes in.

          Misato followed the family of turtles as they slowly swam to and fro. The three turtles noticed her, and they turned around. They swum near her face. The smallest one held up a fin. When Misato didn’t understand what it was trying to say, the turtle shook its fin expectantly.

          Misato cautiously held up a finger. With it, she gently tapped the turtle’s fin. The turtle’s mouth turned up into a small smile, and it swam happily in a circle. Misato laughed shakily, still extremely bewildered.

          “What would you like, Shinji?” Kaworu asked.

          “Wh-what do you mean?” Shinji asked. He still hadn’t moved from his initial position.

          Kaworu held out his hand to Shinji. Shinji took it, and Kaworu pulled Shinji closer to him.

          “I mean, what do you want to see? What’s your favorite fish?” Kaworu questioned.

          “Um… I kinda like… whales,” Shinji said.

          Kaworu grimaced. That was going to be difficult. He didn’t know how to fit one in here… unless he could… make the room bigger?

          Unsure, Kaworu tried stretching the room in his mind. Maybe he bend the limits of space?

          Accommodating his desire, his powers made the room three times its original size. Kaworu exhaled. The other three people stared at him.

          “I never tried that before,” Kaworu said, smiling awkwardly. He conjured up a whale—an orca, because that was the first type to come in mind—and let it start swimming.

          Kaworu realized, with the amount of space they had left to swim, that that was a mistake. He shrunk down the orca.

          “Sorry! Sorry,” Kaworu apologized, his lips set in a thin line.

          Shinji gravitated towards the orca. With a shy, shaking hand, he reached out and petted its head.

          “I love it, Kaworu!” Shinji said, over the moon. “Can it do tricks?”

          “Sure, I guess,” Kaworu replied.

          “Do a flip!” Shinji commanded to the orca.

          The orca obeyed, making a quick yet precise backflip. Shinji clapped his hands.

          “Spin!” Shinji yelled.

          The whale spun itself twice. Shinji swam up to it when it was done. He pressed his face against the whale’s side.

          “You okay, Shinji?” Kaworu asked.

          “Yeah…” Shinji’s voice sounded wet, like he was crying. Kaworu couldn’t tell if he was, though.

          The door to the room slammed open. The water started flowing out of doorway in a huge rush. Kaworu hurriedly vanished everything, and the four fell to the grounds, normal air gravity restored.

          “Ow!” Mari said, rubbing her arm.

          “What? Wha-wha-huh?” Kensuke said, his voice cracking. He stepped into the room.

          "What was that? Water? Fish? What the fuck… was that?” Kensuke started off sounding angry, but his voice turned soft and full of wonder.

          Shinji, Mari, and Misato all looked to Kaworu, hoping for him to explain.

          Kaworu stood there, his arms crossed. He was fighting an internal battle.

          ‘To wipe his memory, or not to wipe… that is the question.'

          Kaworu put his hand on his chin. Hmmmm…

          “If you promise not to tell anyone else about this, I’ll show you it again,” Kaworu said, placing some trust in this human. Kensuke blinked.

          Before he spoke, Kensuke took a minute to wipe his glasses on his shirt. It gave him a few seconds to mull everything over.

          “Of course,” Kensuke finally said, nodding. From his expression, Kaworu believed his honesty.

          Once again, Kaworu created the room full of marine wildlife. He left out remaking the shark, barracuda, and alligator, though. Too dangerous-looking for the average person.

          “Oh my god!” Kensuke said, in awe. He dropped his defensive position, the one he usually had with Toji, and let his body relax.

          “How?” Kensuke said, trailing off.

          “I’ve just been able to, since I was a child,” Kaworu said. He omitted the “alien” part of his powers, though.

          Though, on second thought, Kensuke looked like the type of person to believe in aliens.

          “Do you believe in aliens?” Kaworu asked, trying to make his voice as innocent as possible.

          “Hell yeah I do!” Kensuke said. Kaworu smiled. Kensuke realized after a second why Kaworu had asked him that question, and he looked to Kaworu with an amazed expression.

          “You’re an alien?” Kensuke asked.

          “Yeah,” Kaworu said.

          “Wow….” Kensuke said.

          Kaworu let Kensuke swim for a few minutes, inwardly glowing. Kensuke’s reaction had been the most positive one he’d ever received after telling someone his secret. He was truly delighted.

          “Okay, we should be getting back to the others soon,” Kaworu said, interrupting Kensuke’s sword-fight with the lobsters. Kensuke dropped his stick-sword, looking like as if he had been interrupted during the most exciting moment of his life.

          Kensuke grunted, not pleased at all.

          Kaworu vanished his room again. Before he forgot, he brought back the tatami mats, too.

          Misato led the four kids back to the main room. Only Asuka remained in there, sitting behind the large table.

          “Hey, where’s everyone else?” Misato asked.

          “SHHHH!” Asuka shushed fiercely. She pointed to Sakura, sleeping with her head on her lap. Misato craned her head, and understood what she was trying to say.

          “Where did everybody go?” Misato whispered.

          “Kensuke didn’t tell you?” Asuka asked. She shot a glare at Kensuke, who had seemingly forgotten to tell them why he had come. Kensuke gulped.

          “Everyone else went looking for you guys!” Asuka whispered.

          “The adults went outside, but all of the kids checked indoors,” Kensuke added.

          The door behind them creaked opened. Hikari and Toji stepped into the room.

          “You found them!” Hikari cheered.

          “SHHHHHH!” Both Misato and Asuka shushed her. Asuka pointed again to Sakura on her lap, albeit a little less forcefully than before.

          “Sorry! Sorry!” Hikari apologized.

          “Where were they?” Toji asked.

“They were sitting in the small room with all of the cupboards,” Kensuke explained.

          “Oh! We didn’t check there. Why didn’t we?” Hikari asked Toji.

          “’Dunno,” Toji said. “Why don’t you call the others to let them know they’re all found?”

          “Right!” Hikari said, a bit too loud.

          Asuka shushed her again.

          “Right,” Hikari whispered.

          Hikari pulled out of her apron pocket a black and red walkie-talkie that Shinji recognized.

          “Hello, coming in, over?” Hikari started, pressing the button. She let it go and waited.

          A static voice sounded through, Aoba’s.

          “Got it. Have you found them? Over.”

          “Yes. We’re all in the food room, over,” Hikari answered.

          “Coming now, over.”

          Sakura stirred, the talk waking her up. She wiped her eyes and squinted at everyone.

          “You can go back to bed if you want, Sakura,” Asuka said, her voice kind.

          ‘It was the exact opposite of the tone she uses when she yells at me,’ Shinji thought. He frowned.

          “Mhmm,” Sakura said. She laid herself back down on Asuka’s lap. She curled up into a fetal position.

          Asuka counted a few beats, and Sakura was out like a light. She grinned. She petted Sakura on the top of her head.

          Hikari watched the exchange, kind of wanting to sit next to Asuka. She decided to, and she rested her head on Asuka’s shoulder. She watched Sakura’s chest rise and fall.

          ‘Someday, I want to be a mother with her,’ Hikari thought. She was surprised at how well a mother-figure Asuka had become to Sakura, but not displeased at all.

          Aoba and Hyuga entered.

          Before one of them could start talking loudly, and wake Sakura up, Misato grabbed both of their arms and pulled them out of the room.

          “I’ll tell them everything, just… start getting settled in for the night, yeah?” Misato said, her voice getting softer as she travelled farther away down the hall.

          Shinji was confused. Was it night already?

          Through the boarded windows, no light shone through. He supposed it had to be true, then.

          Hikari yawned, her eyes closing. She felt so comfortable resting on Asuka. She wondered if Asuka was tired, too.

          From Asuka’s lips came a sudden snore. It was loud, yet took place in the span of only a second. For a second, Shinji doubted if he had even hurt it.

          ‘Well, that solves that question,’ Hikari said. She couldn’t stop herself from giggling. Her girlfriend was too cute!

          “Hmph,” Toji said. He grudgingly went out of the room, his hands deep in his pockets.

          “I should help him,” Kensuke said. He followed Toji, walking briskly to catch up to him.

          “What are they doing?” Shinji asked.

          With both eyes closed, Hikari answered.

          “Every night, Asuka and Misato pile up four stacks of empty crates to barricade this back section of the temple. But, since Asuka is asleep, I’m not moving even if you wanted me to, and Misato will be gone for a while, they’re the only ones who can do it,” Hikari elaborated.

          “Oh.”

          “Where do we sleep? What do we sleep on?” Mari asked.

          “This room is the women’s room, for now,” Hikari answered. “Which means…”

          Hikari opened one eye.

          “Shinji, Kaworu, you gotta get out,” Hikari said.

          “Yeah, come on, shoo now,” Mari said, getting a bit of enjoyment out of kicking them out. She puffed out her cheeks like she was annoyed with their presence in her space.

          “What do we sleep on?” Shinji repeated Mari’s question.

          “The floor,” Hikari said. “Yeah, it sucks as much as you think it does.”

          “No more questions, now! Out, out!” Mari said, standing up and playing the bouncer. Trying to get them out of the room, she pushed on both of the boys’ chests.

          Kaworu obeyed her, walking out of the room. However, Shinji still had questions, and he resisted her pushing.

          “Where do we sleep?” Shinji asked.

          “Across the hallway!” Hikari said. Right after that, the sliding door shut closed. Both boys heard a locking noise.

          Shinji stomped away, truthfully, a bit pissed off. Kaworu fell into pace with him, and they crossed the wide hallway, towards a similar doorway.

          “Sorry, Shinji. Mari is more of a ladies’ woman,” Kaworu said

          Shinji opened the door to the other room and walked inside. Kaworu turned on the light.

          Their room was smaller than the ladies’. It held a similar wooden table, but it was shoved to the side. Two guns, some boxes of ammo, and a pile of knives and cooking utensils laid in a corner. Shinji supposed the others had put the more dangerous materials here, and not in the ladies’ sleeping room, so that Sakura wouldn’t try to play with them.

          Shinji sighed. He missed having pajamas to change into. And beds. And warm food. He had been wearing the same outfit for more than two days now.

          It was pretty hot in here, Shinji thought. He started to take off his dirty camo sweatshirt.

          “Ah! Let me help you with that,” Kaworu said, walking over.

          Kaworu helped Shinji take off his dirty camo sweatshirt.

          “There’s blood on the back,” Kaworu told Shinji.

          “Huh? Where?” Shinji asked. Kaworu showed him the back of his sweatshirt.

          “I killed a lurker right by you,” Kaworu explained.

          “I might have to throw it away, then…” Shinji said. Kaworu smelled the shirt, and his nose scrunched up in disgust.

          “That’s a very good idea,” Kaworu said.

          Shinji opened the room’s one small window. He took back his sweatshirt, and chucked it out the window. He then shut it firmly.

“I dunno, I prefer long hair, myself,” Kensuke said, his voice muffled from being behind the door.

          Toji and Kensuke came through the door. They stopped in their tracks.

          “You two are sleeping here?!” Toji asked.

          “Where’s Aoba and Hyuga?” Shinji asked, not answering Toji’s question.

          “They’re on the roof,” Kensuke said.

          “They need to keep watch! So they sleep on the roof, dummy,” Toji added, glaring daggers at Shinji.

          “Let’s just get to bed,” Kensuke said, stepping in the room. “I’m tired.”

          “No way! What if they start kissing?!” Toji said.

          “Oh…” Kensuke said, seeming to take that as a real concern.

          ‘So much for us having a good time together in my aquarium,’ Kaworu thought. He inwardly rolled his eyes.

          “We promise that we won’t do anything, honestly,” Kaworu said, narrowing his eyes and crossing his arms.

          “Let’s just sleep in the other room. That room has blankets!” Toji said.

          “But, we’re not supposed to use the blankets. They’re only for emergencies, Misato said!” Kensuke argued, staring frustratedly at Toji. They had a silent glaring competition.

          “Just come on!” Toji said, huffing. He grabbed Kensuke’s hand and dragged him out of the room.

          Kaworu and Shinji listened to the sounds of them quietly arguing. Their voices got quieter and quieter, until they were finally alone.

Shinji breathed out, letting go some of the tension he felt.

           Kaworu took off his dinosaur-themed jacket. He noticed, with surprise, that there was a large blood stain on the side of it. Also, a human tooth.

          ‘Had it been stuck there this entire time?’ Kaworu thought. ‘Eww.’

          Not sparing it a second glance, Kaworu opened up the window again and threw it outside. He shut the window.

          Unlike Shinji, who had been wearing a blue shirt and a tanktop under his sweatshirt, Kaworu had been wearing nothing else on his chest. So, his chest was bare.

          Not being able to resist the urge to look, Shinji stared at it. He watched Kaworu’s belly rise as he breathed in. He paid close attention to Kaworu’s small, unassuming nipples. He memorized what they looked like, and then looked at Kaworu’s bellybutton. His eyes followed the trails of Kaworu’s hipbones, and the path they made to Kaworu’s…

          Kaworu noticed how Shinji’s pupils dilated. His own throat became a little dry at being ogled, but he said nothing to stop Shinji from doing so.

          Snapping out of his reverie, Shinji coughed and laid down.

          Kaworu walked over to turn off the light. He then laid down to Shinji, placing himself strategically so that Shinji’s face was only inches away from his chest. That made sure that the first thing Shinji would always see when he opened his eyes his bare skin.

          Shinji’s face grew red. Did Kaworu lay like that on purpose? Shinji snapped his eyes to Kaworu’s, and they were alight with mirth. Kaworu was also smiling, almost… mischievously?

          “Okay! Good night,” Shinji said embarrassedly. He forcefully shut his eyes.

          “Good night,” Kaworu said, his voice soft as silk. Shinji shivered.

          God, he was getting an erection.

          Shinji tried to think of anything but Kaworu.

          ‘Newspapers. Sailboats. Ummm… Packing peanuts. Toothpaste. Watermelons. Uh… Sofas. Toy Poodles,’ Shinji thought, making lists of whatever he could think of to distract himself.

          Kaworu yawned loudly. Startled by the noise, Shinji opened his eyes. He got another glimpse of Kaworu’s magnificent chest before he remembered to close his eyes again.

          ‘Fuck! Nothing is working!’ Shinji thought.

          A few minutes passed. Shinji kept up his lists of assorted things, and even tried doing some math problems, but his penis was still at half-mast. Giving into his temptation, he spoke.

          “Kaworu…”

          “Yes, Shinji?” Kaworu answered, still awake as well.

          “I’m… hard.”

          Shinji felt some pressure moving right on his dick. It felt fantastic. He opened his eyes. He saw Kaworu’s knee moving on his bulge.

          “I know,” Kaworu revealed, his voice playful.

          “Oh my god,” Shinji moaned. He threw his head back, enjoying the sensations caused by Kaworu’s knee. Shinji grinded on Kaworu’s knee. He started breathing harder.

          Shinji drew himself closer to Kaworu. He kissed Kaworu’s neck.

          “Shinji,” Kaworu groaned.

          Slowly, Shinji used his tongue to taste Kaworu’s skin. It tasted salty. He licked a stripe ending at Kaworu’s Adam’s apple.

          Momentarily pausing, Kaworu replaced his knee on Shinji’s erection with his hand. He palmed it and then stroked it through Shinji’s pants.

          Shinji lightly bit the side of Kaworu’s neck. Kaworu stopped, an intense rush of pleasure running through his body. Shinji grinded himself against Kaworu’s hand anxiously, wondering why Kaworu had frozen.

          Shinji bit his neck again, this time with a little more force. He licked over his bite marks.

          Turned on immensely, Kaworu let out a shaky moan. He felt his own penis throb and strain in his shorts.

          Taking the dominant role, Shinji leaned over Kaworu. Kaworu’s eyes widened. Shinji swept his hands over Kaworu’s cheeks and over his chest. Shinji’s hands rubbed Kaworu’s thighs.

          A little surprised, Kaworu figured out that he liked when Shinji did that. He had no idea his thighs were so sensitive.

          Shinji’s hands trailed upwards until he finally palmed Kaworu’s bulge. Shinji stared intensely into Kaworu’s eyes. He saw Kaworu blink and squirm as he teased the outside of Kaworu’s dick with his light touches.

          Shinji pulled down Kaworu’s shorts, leaving them hanging on Kaworu’s knees. He pulled out Kaworu’s dick from the front slit of Kaworu’s black boxers.

          Shinji pushed Kaworu so that he was on his back. Shinji leaned over him, and he pressed his finger on the slit of Kaworu’s penis. He knew that on his own dick, that felt really good.

          Kaworu gasped as Shinji’s hand palmed the top of his dick. He felt Shinji’s fingers trail over the veins on his cock, and he nearly sat up. The sensations made his legs quiver.

          Shinji, breathing heavily, started stroking Kaworu’s dick up and down. With his other hand, he teased the skin under Kaworu’s uncut head. With a finger, he circled under Kaworu’s glans.

          “Ah!” Kaworu gasped.

          Kaworu started involuntary thrusting his hips up. As Shinji’s strokes became harder and faster, his hips moved up and down in a frenzy.

          “Hah… hah… hah…” Kaworu’s breaths came out in gasps.

          “You almost there?” Shinji asked, his voice quiet. His eyes were glued to Kaworu’s dick, its head reddened and pulled out of the skin that usually covered it. It throbbed. The curve of it was nothing like he had seen before, but he still loved it.

          Getting closer, Shinji bent down to lick Kaworu’s shaft.

          “AHH! Eee!” Kaworu shrieked, his voice unusually high.

          Shinji smiled, finding that amusing to hear. He kept licking small licks on Kaworu’s dick. He licked up to the head, and then put his tongue flat over Kaworu’s slit.

          Kaworu’s hips jerked up suddenly, and Shinji felt the head of Kaworu’s dick slide into his mouth. He suctioned his mouth around it.

          The feeling of tight, wet walls around him was too much for Kaworu to handle. The sensations caused his muscles to twitch, and his mouth flew open. His eyes scrunched up, refusing to open.

          “Oh my god, SH- SHINJI, I’m coming I’m coming I can’t-” Kaworu babbled, gasping in between his sentences. He let out a high, drawn-out moan. He almost seemed to want to scream.

          Shinji pulled Kaworu’s dick out of his mouth and placed his tongue in the sensitive slit. The tip of it went into Kaworu’s urethra, and Kaworu lost it.

          “OH NO- oh god I’M OH—” Kaworu orgasmed, his hands fisting tightly on Shinji’s shirt.

          On a whim, Shinji opened his mouth after the first few spurts went over his lips and cheek. He tasted some globs of it. It had the consistency of pancake batter, and was a little sweet, too.

          With an embarrassed flush, Shinji remembered Kaworu’s strong desire to taste his own semen again. What did he say, again? That he wanted to ‘taste more of it?’

          Rolling Kaworu’s semen around in his mouth, he supposed that made sense. He swallowed it with a big gulp.

          ‘Would it be in bad taste to say ‘thank you for the meal?’ Shinji asked, holding back a snort. Kaworu noticed him hold his hand to his face, holding back a grin.

          “What?” Kaworu asked, his voice breathless. He could still feel some aftershocks of his orgasmic tremors in his thighs. They twitched. It was a weird sensation. Plus, his muscles felt like jelly.

          Trying to be as sexy as he could, Shinji wiped up a string of semen on his cheek. He slowly licked it off his finger. Kaworu watched him eagerly, watching his tongue swipe over the appendage. Shinji’s eyelids fell down in a lusty, sensual gaze. Kaworu felt his heart speed up. Even totally spent, his dick throbbed.

          Shinji finished the rest of the cum on his finger, acting like it was the best meal he’d ever eaten.

          “Thank you for the food,” Shinji whispered, inwardly feeling a bit silly for saying it.

          However, taking him totally seriously, Kaworu’s pupils dilated. He moaned against his will, and his arms flew forward to embrace Shinji.

          With Shinji in his arms, Kaworu whispered in his ear.

          “That was so hot.”

          Shinji giggled.

          In Kaworu’s ear, he whispered, “Now come taste mine,” in a soft, inviting tone.

          Kaworu stiffened, his hormones spiking. The things Shinji was doing was making him feel incredibly turned-on. He wondered if he could come again, just with Shinji whispering dirty things to him.

          Gulping, Kaworu took Shinji up on his offer. He got up from the floor and laid on his stomach. Shinji opened up his legs, and Kaworu laid right in front of Shinji’s dick. It strained the front of Shinji’s pants, and Kaworu couldn’t wait to see it again.

          Kaworu pulled down the zipper of Shinji’s pants. He opened the flap of Shinji’s briefs to grab a hold of Shinji’s penis. He smiled like it was an old friend, and rubbed it against his cheek.

          “Aha... ahh,” Shinji said.

          Kaworu winked at him, just before he engulfed Shinji’s entire cock in his mouth. Thank god angels don’t have gag reflexes!

          Shinji screamed, his eyes wide open in surprise. They fluttered closed, and with a thrust forwards, Shinji came.

          ‘That was fast!’ Kaworu thought. He grinned as he moved his head back so that the semen spurting hit his tongue instead of his throat. He wanted to taste it all.

          Shinji’s semen tasted heavenly. Kaworu could have moaned with delight on its sweet, strong flavor.

          ‘I must have been born to drink this,’ Kaworu thought, greedily taking it all. He didn’t swallow it for a minute, letting the taste stay on his tongue. Almost sadly, he finally swallowed it all.

          Kaworu moved his head away. Shinji fell back, laying on the floor, his body exhausted. Kaworu noticed one last bead of semen hanging on the tip of Shinji’s cock. He bent forward and licked it happily.

          Shinji’s whole body flinched in shock. His glans was still extremely sensitive. He pushed Kaworu’s cheek away. Kaworu pouted.

          Shinji grabbed Kaworu’s back, and he held him to his body. Kaworu’s weight crushed him, but he didn’t care. Kaworu kissed his cheek.

          “Sorry I came quickly,” Shinji said, kind of self-conscious for doing so.

          “No problem! No problem!” Kaworu reassured him. “I surprised you.”

          “Yeah, meanie,” Shinji agreed. He felt Kaworu’s resulting laugh against his chest.

          “Hmmm…” Shinji sighed.

          “Am I crushing you?” Kaworu asked. Even though he didn’t want to end their post-coital blissful snuggling, he didn’t want Shinji to get hurt.

          “Mmm… yeah,” Shinji said.

          “Okay,” Kaworu said, but he didn’t get up. He felt Shinji’s breath on his ear. He didn’t really feel like moving.

          Shinji kissed the side of Kaworu’s nose.

          “Ow,” Shinji reminded Kaworu of the fact that it was getting harder to breathe under his weight.

          Kaworu reluctantly got up off of him.

          Shinji wiped off his face, making sure that he didn’t have any remaining globs of semen. He found a trail still there, and he licked it off his fingers. He looked up at Kaworu, who was staring at him intensely.

          “I like seeing you lick your fingers,” Kaworu explained, his eyes lidded.

          Shinji grinned. He finished cleaning his fingers, tucked himself back into his pants, and zipped them up. He tried, in vain, to smooth out his crumpled shirt.

          Kaworu also tucked his flaccid penis in his shorts. He zipped up his shorts.

          Shinji laid down next to Kaworu. Kaworu turned around and laid himself in Shinji’s arms.

          His arm loosely over Kaworu’s belly, Shinji fell asleep.

          “Goodnight, Shinji. I love you,” Kaworu whispered. Five minutes later, and he was also asleep.


	12. Plans for the Future

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shinji divulges some of his self-esteem issues, Misato and Mari talk about Kaji, and Kaworu tries to impress Toji and Misato with his powers.

          “Oi. Oi. Oi. Oi,” Mari said. She poked Kaworu’s side repeatedly. She watched the still-asleep Kaworu kick, and his face scrunch up.

          ‘Tough shit. I’m hungry,’ Mari thought. She looked at her best friend’s boyfriend. Maybe he would get up faster.

          “Hey. Get up. Get up,” Mari said. With her other hand, she prodded Shinji’s forehead five times.

          Kaworu opened his eyes blearily.

          “What the heck?” Kaworu said, his voice barely coming out because of his dry mouth. He licked his lips, thinking of the lack of water he’d had the last few days.

          Shinji blinked open awake, too. He felt the heaviness of Kaworu’s body, which was currently laying on top of him. Closing his eyes again, he ran his fingers through Kaworu’s hair. His hand caught on some of Kaworu’s snarls. Kaworu flinched.

          “Breakfast is now. Get up, I’m hungry,” Mari said.

          Shinji sat up. Kaworu followed suit.

          “What time is it?” Shinji asked.

          Kaworu yawned into his hand.

          “Ten or something,” Mari said. Shinji’s eyes opened, surprised.

          “What?! That’s really late!” Shinji said.

          “Not really. I used to get up at 2 pm on the weekends,” Mari said, acting like that was no big deal.

          “I used to get up at 3,” Kaworu added.

          “No, I mean—I mean that we’ve never gotten up as late as this in the compound before! Who’s going to do the morning chores?!” Shinji asked, internally freaking out. He bunched up clumps of his hair with his hands.

          “Chores?” Kaworu asked.

          “Psssh!” Mari laughed. “You sound like you’re excited to do them! Do you think chores are fun or something?”

          Shinji didn’t say anything.

          “Shinji, you… are you okay at not doing chores?” Kaworu asked. 

          "It's what I always used to do... like a routine every day," Shinji said.

          "Well, yeah. But why do you still think you need to do them? Wouldn't it suck doing them every day?" Mari asked. 

          "Do you have something you want to prove, Shinji?" Kaworu asked, his stomach tight. Shinji's face fell.

          “I’m not sure—I think that I used to think that I needed to… prove to the others that I could do something. That I’m not a burden to be here,” Shinji answered, his voice soft. Mari strained her ears, listening intently with Kaworu.

          Shinji laughed lowly.

          “I remember that I even used to take on extra chores, just to make sure that nobody believed that I didn’t deserve to be there. I wanted to show everyone that I wasn’t a waste of food, energy, or space,” Shinji finished, almost only speaking to himself. 

          His sentence hung in the air.

          “Wow… Um… You always seemed eager to do chores… I had no idea, dude,” Mari said. She slapped Shinji on the back, trying to be supportive.

          ‘I never knew that he was concerned with that,’ Kaworu thought. ‘I understand he values the approval of others, but I didn’t realize he had to try so hard to overcome his insecurities. I should comfort him.’

          Kaworu leaned forward. He tenderly placed his forehead on Shinji’s.

          “I know that Misato and all of the other adults appreciate everything you do, Shinji,” Kaworu said. “Asuka, Hikari, and Sakura, too. You bring them happiness by fulfilling their needs in any way you can. They love having you with them—I can see it on their faces.”

          Shinji looked into Kaworu’s eyes with surprise and amazement. However, he quickly turned his head away.

          “I-I knew that,” Shinji said, blushing. “That’s why I said I used to think that way—because I don’t anymore!”

          “I believe you, Shinji,” Kaworu said. He tried to hold back a giggle.

          Mari was doing the same thing. She tried covering her grin with her hands but thought against it and put her hands in her lap.

          ‘Shinji is such a cute kid.’ Mari thought. ‘I’m glad that both me and Kaworu met him, he makes Kaworu very happy.’

          Mari coughed. Shinji turned back to the two other kids.

          “Aaaanyway,” Mari said, drawing out the word. She stood up and dusted off her shorts.

          “Let’s go get food,” Mari said to remind them about why they were getting up.

          Shinji and Kaworu quickly got dressed and left with Mari to go to the large room they visited yesterday. On the way, they met Sakura and Asuka. Asuka was sitting on what looked like a dingy, hard bathroom stool. Sakura was standing in front of her. In her hands laid a makeup brush and a bag filled with mascaras, lipsticks of various colors, nail polish, and containers of blush powder. Sakura was painting Asuka’s eyelids with a thick purple powder. She was applying it very clumsily. Spots of powder dropped down to Asuka’s cheeks and her forehead was covered in a few streaks of it.

          Sakura clicked her tongue, something that both Misato and Asuka liked to do. With a small, untrained thumb, Sakura wiped off the dots of purple from Asuka’s face. Asuka smiled, a feat uncharacteristic of her. Her eyes were closed, so she didn’t notice Shinji, Kaworu, and Mari coming.

          The floor under Shinji’s shoes squeaked as they walked nearer, and one of Asuka’s eyes shot open. She spluttered and unrelaxed her body. She glared at the three kids.

          “Nothing to see here!” Asuka yelled. Her voice prompted Shinji to unconsciously begin walking quicker.

          “Important business,” Sakura’s high voice squeaked out, supporting Asuka’s claim.

          Sakura stuck out her tongue like a Renaissance painter looking for inspiration for their next brush stroke. She put away her brush and twisted open a tube of dark green lipstick.

          “Are you sure green will really work with purple?” Asuka said, her voice lacking any bite.

          “Forget about it~ I know what I’m doing,” Sakura chirped in a sing-song voice. Asuka grinned again and puckered her lips. Sakura sloppily rubbed the lipstick over Asuka's lips, messing up but clearly having fun. Asuka laughed too, which did nothing but get lipstick applied to her front teeth. 

          “Damn! I should’ve asked for a makeover,” Mari said as they strolled past the two girls and into the breakfast room.

          Misato had brought in her supermarket box of assorted snack foods already, and it laid on top of the table. As she went to call in the others for breakfast, the three kids opened the large jug of water and poured water in everyone’s cups. Mari did the heavy lifting, Kaworu swapped the full and empty cups, and Shinji placed everyone’s cups on the table.

          Kensuke and Toji sauntered in the room, both of their faces white. Without speaking to the three, they robotically grabbed their cups and walked out of the room. The three looked at each other confusedly, but they dropped the subject.

          Asuka and Sakura moseyed into the room, their makeover only half-finished. Only one of Asuka’s cheeks was covered with blush, and a line of lipstick extended from her lips and to the middle of her left cheek. Sakura, on the other hand, had a well-done coat of blush and lipstick applied, both in warm colors. Her eyes were lined with cat-like eyeliner.

          Hyuga and Aoba followed, and then Misato and Hikari. Kensuke and Toji didn’t return. Even so, Misato announced the beginning of the meal and started handing out bread snacks.

          As Shinji was chewing on an expired granola bar, he asked Misato where Kensuke and Toji were. A vein popped in Misato’s forehead, shocking Shinji.

          “That’s right, I need to make an announcement to everyone,” Misato muttered darkly. She cleared her throat.

          “Attention, everyone. I caught Toji and Kensuke sleeping in the medical room last night,” Misato said.

          “What?!” Hyuga yelled.

          “Why would they--?” Aoba whispered.

          “They slept on the sanitary EMERGENCY-ONLY blankets, ones we were saving for any possible dire situations,” Misato announced, her voice raising.

          “Therefore, I’ve suspended them from coming to breakfast and dinner, they’re limited now to only staying inside the temple, and they’ve been given the task of sweeping the entire temple from top to bottom,” Misato finished, her voice light and cheery.

          Aoba and Hyuga shivered. Misato was extremely fucking pissed.

          “That’s all! Enjoy your meals!” Misato smiled. She immediately began digging back into her tuna sandwich.

          The rest of the occupants, sans Sakura who hadn’t stopped eating her panda cookies, slowly returned to their meals, wary. Sakura noticed everyone acting strange, so she studied their faces as she sipped on her juice box.

          After breakfast, everyone dispersed to their duties or free-time. Shinji helped Hikari push away the barrier of crates so that Misato and Hyuga could go and keep watch outside of the temple. Kaworu and Mari gladly gathered and threw away the wrappers from breakfast in the trashcan near the back exit of the temple.

          With nothing else to do, Shinji, Kaworu, and Mari sat in the boy’s room and lounged around.

          “Oh! I forgot to tell you guys something,” Mari said, interrupting Kaworu’s argument with Shinji. Their debate was over the benefits of eating many small meals instead of a few large meals.

          “—and you could go to bed hungry if you do exercise before you sleep,” Kaworu finished, opposing Shinji's viewpoint that eating a lot of smaller meals kept your body healthier. He turned to Mari, who was laying on her back scratching her foot. Her face was blank and unreadable.

          “What?” Shinji asked.

Mari gulped, looking almost grave. She looked like she had incredibly important yet depressing news to share, yet instead she delivered this sentence:

          “Did you know that Misato doesn’t wear a bra when she sleeps?”

          It took both boys a second to process her sentence. At the same time, both of their faces grimaced.

          ‘What, you don’t believe that? Are you a skeptic?’ Mari thought. She was watching their reactions carefully. She's also watching yours. Do you believe her? You should trust her judgement.

          Mortified, Shinji put his hands over her mouth. Kaworu shook his head at Mari’s bluntness. However, happily deciding to make the situations worse, Mari took the opportunity to make motions over her chest signifying Misato’s large breasts.

          Shinji understood her gestures. His face flushed.

          “Her boobs nearly pop out of her shirt! It’s so cool to see. I could’ve appreciated her nipples forever,” Mari sang, her eyes sparkling with joy.

          “Mari,” Kaworu said, sighing.

          “What? I just wanted to tell you guys about Misato,” Mari sighed in mock-sadness. She grinned.

          “Did you call for me?” Misato appeared in the doorway, scaring the ever-loving crap out of the three kids.

          Mari’s eyes bulged out of her skull in shock. Had she heard everything? Would she never sleep in the same room as her again?!

         "No, I-I mean yes. Yes. We were talking about how you…” Shinji said, doing his best at coming up with a lie.

          “Um, yes, how you are _such_ a good cook!” Mari finished.

          Misato tilted her head.

          “How do you know that my cooking is good? You’ve never eaten my cooking,” Misato said to Mari.

          “Yes, true, but I was telling her all about it!” Kaworu said, covering for Mari. Mari nodded repeatedly.

          “Aww, thank you guys,” Misato smiled. “Are you sure you didn’t need anything else?”

          “Nope, we’re good!” Mari said.

          “Oh, if that’s all,” Misato mumbled, shrugging her shoulders.

          The three kids breathed a sigh of relief.

          Misato dawdled a bit near the doorway and readjusted her skirt.

         "I was actually on the way to come speak with you, Mari,” Misato said. “Would that be okay?”

          “Oh, of course,” Mari said. “Why?”

          “Well, I know that you were a relative of Kaji,” Misato started.

          “True,” Mari agreed.

          “I’d love to speak with you about him. It’s been so long since I’ve seen him, and I want to…” Misato trailed off.

          Misato didn’t know what she wanted to gain from talking to Mari. She took a second to piece her thoughts together.

          ‘Anything that we could talk about that could get the two of us closer would be great. I mean, she’s my lover’s niece! I need to make sure she’s okay, and find out where Kaji could have gone,’ Misato thought.

          “I want to know where he is,” Misato ended. Mari nodded.

          “Me too,” Mari said.

          Misato sat down, and Mari did the same.

          “Should we leave?” Shinji asked, already beginning to stand up.

          “I don’t care,” Mari replied, shrugging. Her private life wasn't that much of a big deal to her.

          Misato nodded, agreeing with her decision. Shinji sat back down.

          “So…” Misato began, dragging her word out a few seconds. “What do you remember of Kaji?”

          “Hmmm…” Mari moved her arms to rest above her head. She felt like she could tell Misato about anything and everything she thought about him. She had been close to him too, after all.

          “He left the ‘States when I was seven or eight, and I only remember him coming back to visit later a few times,” Mari said. “He was my favorite uncle, especially in my stuck-up family.”

          Mari scrunched up her nose as she remembered her family.

          “When he came back from Japan he didn’t seem the same. He didn’t want to play with me as much, and he would obsessively make sure that every lock and window in the house was bolted and closed every time he came over.”

          “That’s probably a consequence of his undercover work. He had a few times where his places were raided, and a few allies of his had been killed,” Misato exhaled.

          “Shit…” Mari said.

          Misato nodded.

          “He revealed to me that he actually really hated how awful the stress of his job was. He feared for his life, and after getting threats made out to his family, feared anyone around him getting hurt because of him.”

          “Wow,” Mari breathed.

          “He had been the same in our apartment, locking everything up tight. He didn’t want anyone else to die. He probably wanted to protect all of you,” Misato said.

          “That’s a whole other side to him I never knew…” Mari said, mumbling. She shook her head.

          ‘There’s no time to wonder about the past. I’ll just get caught up in what could have happened,’ Mari thought.

          “I think we’re all becoming pretty sad,” Misato observed. She looked at Shinji and Kaworu, and confirmed her statement with their glum expressions.

          “Why don’t you tell me about the fun times you had with him, Mari? You said he was your favorite? Was he awesome?” Misato said. She rested her hand on her head, looking eager to listen.

          “Damn right,” Mari swore. She blew out air from her nostrils, getting flared up for her chance to go wild at story telling.

          “Tell me about anything you remember. Even if it’s something stupid, I’d love to hear it,” Misato encouraged. Mari grinned.

          “Let's see... what sticks out to me the most were my car rides with him. He let me sit in the front seat. He was cool like that. He wasn’t uptight like my dad, or easy to anger, like my mom,” Mari said. She smiled wistfully.

          Mari recalled all of the times her uncle Kaji fought with her parents to take her out late, sometimes out past her bedtime on school nights. He had snorted and nearly choked on soda from her witty remarks, and had called her ability to crack a joke so effortlessly a talent. He encouraged her sarcastic side, her devil-may-care view on the world, and her rebellion against her teachers and parents. No matter what she had done, what she had said, he had never shut her down.

          “He was the best…” Mari smiled. “I wished that he could have taken me driving.”

          “He loved to drive,” Misato agreed.

          “He said that someday he would give me his favorite beat-up truck. I knew that he also had a very shiny and expensive convertible that he rode to work, but he told me that he hated that one. So, I never wanted one like it,” Mari said. “He said that he had made many precious memories in his truck, and those were worth more than the brand-new wheels and the leather seats of his convertible.”

          “It’s too bad now that nobody can drive,” Misato said.

          “I know. Kaji's probably very disappointed,” Mari agreed. The two women grinned, sharing their glee with each other.

          “He’s probably still trying to find gas, or even still working on a car,” Misato mused.

          “Was he still in Japan when the lurkers came?” Mari asked.

          “Yes, but he was on a project,” Misato answered.

          “Where?” Mari asked.

          “I don’t know,” Misato replied.

          Mari groaned, running her fingers through her hair.

          “How are we gonna find him then? He could be anywhere!” Mari grumbled.

          Mari rubbed her temples, her mind working hard.

          “Did he have any places he used to go all the time?” Mari asked.

          “He sometimes came to the lab to see me or get new information,” Misato said.

          “Okay, that’s a start. Have you guys been back to the lab?” Mari asked.

          “Um…… no. Me, Hyuga’s, and Aoba’s priorities were to take care of the kids we found, but we did find a place to settle down. That was our other priority. Ugh, I don’t know why we didn’t go back and check on the lab when we had the museum,” Misato bemoaned, her voice regretful. “We had the supplies.”

          “I wanna go there,” Mari said. Her mouth was set in a serious line.

          “How?” Misato flinched. “The lab is in Tokyo!”

          “I have a gut feeling that he’ll be there. Or if he’s not, at least maybe we can get some clues to his whereabouts,” Mari smirked.

          “By car, it’s over four hours away, Mari,” Misato revealed, her voice unamused. “You guys would be separated from us for over a week! Plus, you’d be in the most lurker-populated city in the world!”

          “Oi, Kaworu,” Mari called, turning to face him.

          “What?”

          “Can you get us there?” Mari asked.

          “To Tokyo?” Kaworu asked.

          “No, to Dehli, India,” Mari drawled. Kaworu stuck out his tongue at her.

          “I don’t know,” Kaworu replied.

          “Can you like, make us fly?” Mari asked, her eyes sparkling.

          “I don’t know.”

          “ _Or_ , like, like, can you teleport us?!” Mari yelled, covering her mouth excitedly.

          “I don’t know.”

          “What are you guys talking about?” Misato questioned.

          “How about you teleport us into the hallway? Try that!” Mari squealed.

          “Okay, I’ll try,” Kaworu shrugged, smiling.

          Misato closed her eyes and rubbed her forehead.

          “I think I’ve lost you guys. Real life isn’t like anime, you know that? Nobody can teleport anyone anywhere,” Misato said.

          Misato then opened her eyes to see the four of them sitting in the hallway. The tatami floor mats that she had been sitting on was now the hallway's solid rock tile.

          “What the fuck?” Misato asked. She tapped the different floor to confirm it was real.

          “What the fuck…” Toji echoed. He was in the middle of sweeping the hallway’s gross floors, his stomach rumbling and his mind extremely irritated, when the four had suddenly appeared.

          Toji dropped his broom and stepped backwards. The broom loudly thumped onto the floor.

          Misato stood up in shock and stared wide-eyed at Kaworu. Kaworu was dusting himself off, and the other two kids looked not at all surprised to suddenly be sitting in a new area.

          “Cool, right?” Mari said, striking a pose. “We have an alien!”

          Mari gestured to Kaworu. Toji’s eyes also landed on him.

          “Um, what the hell-” Toji said.

          “She’s right. I’m an alien,” Kaworu confirmed.

          “Is that why your hair is white?” Toji asked. He turned around, a smug expression crossing his face.

          “Oh my god, I totally called it,” Toji whispered to himself, making a triumphant motion with his fist. He turned back around to the group.

          “I don’t believe it…” Misato said.

          “I’ll bring us all to the top of the temple, then. Might as well save us the trouble of having to convince everyone,” Kaworu pondered in a voice too low for anyone else to hear.

          After a second, the five of them found themselves standing on top of the temple’s roof. The roof was slanted, but Kaworu transported them to the narrow tip of the rooftop. The four humans struggled to keep their balance on the little beam. Their limbs flew everywhere as they struggled to maintain their balance.

          “Doesn’t the breeze feel nice?” Kaworu hummed, floating mid-air above all of them.

          “Oh god, why are we so high?!” Misato yelled, panicking at how far away they were from the ground.

          “Bring us back!” Mari yelled, momentarily losing her footing.

          In the blink of an eye, they all were back in the hallway.

          “Are you all alright?” Kaworu asked, noticing their frightened faces. He wanted to show them something cool, but they didn’t seem to like his latest effort.

          “Sheesh, Kaworu! You could have warned us,” Mari said, grimacing.

          Kaworu looked at Shinji’s unnerved expression. Shinji rubbed his arms together, uncomfortable with Kaworu staring at him.

          Kaworu realized that he shouldn’t have done that. By not telling them of his intentions, he scared them. They couldn’t fly like he could. They probably thought that they could seriously fall and get really hurt. The temple’s ceilings were pretty tall, and how could they trust that he wouldn't let them fall?

          Kaworu looked around to see Misato staring at the ceiling, apparently thinking the same thing about the ceiling's height.

          “I’m sorry,” Kaworu apologized. Toji snorted, masking his previous distress with frustration.

          “I wanted to show you guys the top of the building, I’m sorry, I should have warned you guys,” Kaworu said, bowing his head. He felt ashamed that he had failed in making the humans happy with his powers.

          “Whatever,” Toji said.

          “It’s okay,” Shinji said, wanting to make his boyfriend feel better.

          “Here, here,” Kaworu interjected, another idea popping in his head. “Let’s try something else.”

          With a pop, the five again were above the temple. However, this time, not only Kaworu was floating above everything. The four looked to the ground below them, noticing that they all were standing a few feet above the temple.

          “How’s this! Let’s walk on air!” Kaworu smiled.

          “What the fuck?” Mari swore. She tested out the air in front of her with her foot. She didn’t feel like there was anything solid there for her to step onto, so she hesitated in taking a step.

          “What are we on top of?” Shinji asked.

          “I created a layer of see-through matter for you all to walk on,” Kaworu explained. “So please, try walking.”

          Nobody moved.

          Kaworu sighed. He walked forwards, demonstrating. To make it even more clear that the layer was there, he made the layer light up as he moved. His footprints remained on the layer as lightly-colored purple outlines.

          Misato bravely took a few steps forward. Behind her, yellow outlines of her feet stayed on the surface of the layer.

          “Oh! Yellow is my favorite color,” Misato exclaimed, surprised.

          “I know,” Kaworu said.

          “Huh?” Misato questioned, but Kaworu didn’t elaborate. He simply winked and turned to Shinji, urging him to try and walk.

          Holding his breath, Shinji walked towards Kaworu before stopping. He turned around and noticed his footprints lighted up with dark blue.

          “That’s my favorite color, too,” Shinji observed. He was impressed that Kaworu knew of the exact shade of blue he loved, the one he had seen long ago on a shiny car.

          The five walked across the see-through ground. The humans were amazed at how strange it felt to walking above everything.

          Shinji walked over Toji’s black footprints and Mari’s bright pink ones. He then stepped right into one of Kaworu’s purple footprints.

          “Huh.”

          “What?” Kaworu asked.

          “My feet are smaller than yours,” Shinji remarked.

          “That’s because you have really tiny fucking feet,” Toji butted in.

          “My feet are not small,” Shinji said defensively. A blush dusted over his cheeks.

          “Don’t worry Shinji, I have small feet too,” Misato smiled, trying to defuse the situation before anything began. She walked over to one of Shinji’s footprints and placed her foot over it.

          “Wow, your feet are even smaller than mine!” Misato gasped, speaking before she could think about what she was saying.

          Shinji’s cheeks grew redder.

          “I bet that’s not the only thing that’s small,” Toji quipped, covering his mouth with his hand in a shy, mocking way.

          “Shut up!” Shinji shouted. His palms shook with embarrassment and anger.

          Mari looked between the two, uncomfortable. She shared a look with Kaworu.

          “Don’t say such rude things to Shinji,” Kaworu said. He moved in front of Shinji.

          “Can I push him off the ground here?” Shinji half-whispered, glancing to the ground.

          “I heard that!” Toji yelled, preparing to start a fight. He was raring to go, but Shinji’s concentrated gaze on the ground stopped him.

          Under the four, a group of six or seven lurkers had congregated. None were interested by going into the temple’s entrance, but a few of them lurked dangerously close to the building.

          “Fuck! Why didn’t I make us invisible?!” Kaworu said, berating himself for his lack of oversight.

          “Can’t you just kill them?” Mari asked.

          “I don’t want their bodies splattered everywhere by the entrance,” Kaworu answered. “Also, it’s best to not attract any more attention with any flashing lights.”

          “Well, that was—” Misato started talking. In the middle of her sentence, the layer had vanished and the five were transported back into the hallway. “—fun.”

          “Who’s on guard duty right now?” Kaworu asked. Misato looked at her wristwatch.

          “I should be on right now,” Misato said, her voice betraying her alarm at missing filling in her important post.

          “Good,” Kaworu said. “I’m going to go kill them, be right back.”

          “What?” Mari asked, but Kaworu was gone in a flash.

          Kaworu lured the lurkers away from the temple. He made sure not to run too fast and outpace them, but he had to make sure he wasn’t too slow, or they could catch up to him. He stopped a mile and a half away down the road. He had the idea of covering himself in a glamour to make himself invisible, and he blasted the confused lurkers apart.

          Kaworu teleported back to the temple’s entrance. Misato jumped in her skin when she saw him appear out of nowhere, but she calmed down and let him inside.

          The hallway that the five of them had been in was deserted. Kaworu nonchalantly strolled around the temple looking for Mari and Shinji, his hands in his pockets.

          On his trip around the area, Kaworu saw Sakura laying on the floor like a starfish, doing nothing but staring at the ceiling. Sakura lifted her neck up to see who he was, and she waved. Kaworu waved back and let her get back to her activity.

          Kaworu heard a near-silent “Fuck” when he passed by a room right next to their dining room. Hearing nothing but silence before, it startled him a bit. Curious, he opened the door and stepped inside.

          Kensuke was the lone occupant of the room. He was hiding in the corner, behind a shelf. His body was shaking, and his stomach rumbled pitifully with aching hunger.

          Kensuke was using a red Swiss Army knife to try and sneakily open a jar of spiced pickles. He was failing miserably. His knife dropped from his hands and onto the floor, and Kensuke groaned.

          “Here, let me help,” Kaworu said. Kensuke started, nearly dropping the jar. Expecting the reaction, Kaworu bent down and grabbed it before it fell. He screwed the top off with forceful arms and handed the opened jar to Kensuke.

          Kensuke looked torn. He looked like he wanted to cry in happiness and angry accuse Kaworu of trying to pull a fast one on him.

          Slowly and cautiously, Kensuke grabbed the jar from Kaworu’s outstretched hands. His stomach gurgled again, and Kensuke began chewing up pickle by pickle. Kaworu waited until the entire jar was empty before he decided he wanted to say something. Luckily, Kensuke also thought the same thing.

          Wiping off pickle juice off his lips, Kensuke explained himself.

          “I was desperate—I know I shouldn’t have done that—it’s my fault that I went with and helped Toji sleep with the clean blankets—I’ll tell Misato later—they were spoiled anyway—I was just so hungry.”

           Kaworu listened to Kensuke’s broken sentences. He took in Kensuke’s tired and defeated form. He was breathing heavily and his face looked crumpled with regret.

          “It’s okay, I won’t tell anyone,” Kaworu said, deciding to throw him a bone.

          “You won’t?!” Kensuke spluttered, his eyes wide behind his glasses.

          “You worked hard today, and people need nourishment to live,” Kaworu said. “Are you done with cleaning the temple yet?”

          “No, not even close,” Kensuke said back. Just being reminded of the fact that he had so much more work to do made him massage his temples.

          “Where did you get the knife?” Kaworu asked, gesturing to the army knife still spread out on the floor.

          “Oh!”

          Kensuke quickly picked up the knife. He folded it back up, wiped it off delicately with his shirt, and gingerly placed it back in his pocket.

          “From some house. I got it back on a scavenger mission with Shinji,” Kensuke explained.

          Kaworu’s eyebrows shot up.

          “Those missions sounded like they were fun,” Kaworu remarked.

          “Ehh. Not really,” Kensuke replied, shrugging.

          “Just… um… please don’t mention my knife to anyone,” Kensuke asked, his eyes pleading. “I don’t want anyone to take it and ruin it by killing anything with it.”

          “Oh, okay,” Kaworu promised. It seemed like a very important tool to Kensuke.

          “Thanks a lot,” Kensuke said, his shoulders slumping with relief.

          The two boys stood there, silent for a brief moment. Kensuke awkwardly shuffled his feet.

          “I—I don’t hate you guys,” Kensuke said. He looked to Kaworu, who tilted his head, not understanding fully what he was saying.

          “I mean, I don’t hate you for dating that guy… Shinji,” Kensuke continued. “It’s weird, really, really weird, but I don’t hate you two.”

          Kaworu paused, thinking.

          “Does Toji?” Kaworu asked. “Does he hate us?”

          “I dunno… yes, maybe, no, yes… I dunno,” Kensuke sighed. “His relationship with Shinji is complicated. He really used to hate Shinji’s guts before, and maybe he still does… probably… but now that Sakura’s happy and healthy again and you guys are leaving for good soon….”

          “We might as well… make up?” Kensuke finished, his last words coming out in a strained question. He looked to Kaworu for agreement.

          Kaworu smiled.

          “I think Shinji would like that,” Kaworu said, nodding.

          “Cool, awesome,” Kensuke replied, a small smile on his face.

          Kensuke replaced the empty jar on the shelf, hiding it behind similar-looking jars filled with alcohol or oil. He turned to leave the room, but with his door on the doorknob, he called back to Kaworu.

          “I’m sorry,” Kensuke repeated.

          “No worries,” Kaworu reassured him. “I accept your apology.”

          Kensuke smiled back, a link of understanding forming between them. He walked back to join Toji. He hoped that his best friend wouldn’t be too pissed at him for taking such a long “bathroom break.” Perhaps he could say that he had diarrhea from the awful curry he had three days ago. He’ll think of something.


	13. Time for a Field Trip

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shinji, Mari, and Kaworu all have an awful day. They crawl through vents, and into a place infested with lurkers.

          “God, this is so gross,” Shinji complained, as he scrubbed the temple’s rotting bathhouse. He held his brush in one hand while holding his nose with the other, because the walls and floors smelled putrid.

          Misato had set him, Kaworu, and Mari, on a mission to finish a week’s chores in a few days. She wanted to create preparations for the days that she would be absent from the group, for she believed that the group would probably slack off if their leader wasn’t there to motivate them.

          At first, Shinji had completely agreed with her. However, after a crappy morning and hours of scrubbing through slime and dirt, he was very pissed off. He angrily scrubbed at a spot on the floor until it was pristine clean. 

          Shinji sat back on his heels. He wished he had someone to help him clean.

          Mari had woken up just before breakfast to intense, crippling period cramps that made her unable to even walk. Unbelievably, it was Asuka who came to her aid. Asuka, someone who also got incredibly awful cramps frequently, sympathetically took charge of getting her settled back down onto a bed. At breakfast, Shinji overheard her saying to Hikari that she was periodically checking up on Mari to see if she needed water or to see if she could finally stomach any food.

          “Can we give her aspirin?” Asuka had asked Misato. She knew the answer, but she wanted to try anyway.

          Like she had before, Misato replied in the negative, telling her firmly that their limited medicinal supplies were for life-threatening emergencies only. But, at least, Misato seemed a bit sad to tell her that. Nevertheless, Asuka didn’t feel satisfied.

          “Says the woman who doesn’t even get period cramps…” Asuka grumbled under her breath, glaring at the wall.

          Misato ignored her comment, walking away.

          Back then, Shinji felt like him and Kaworu would have to pick up the pace quite a bit to get all the day’s chores done, but he thought it was doable. That was, until, Kaworu had passed out, mid-bite and everything, during breakfast.

          Shinji regretted it now, but he had laughed at Kaworu. He thought he had pretended to faint on purpose, because it was so sudden. Kaworu had just been talking to him, after all. Plus, the sight of Kaworu’s face covered in his vanilla ice cream looked pretty funny. The white cream fitted well on Kaworu’s pale face and in his white hair.

          When Kaworu didn’t get up and smile after a few seconds, Shinji felt anxious. His face paled, and he shook Kaworu’s shoulder. Misato and the other adults had hurried over, and they huddled over Kaworu. Misato woke Kaworu up with a cold, damp washcloth on his cheek.

          Kaworu woke up with a splitting migraine, and he grimaced and started crying due to the pain.

          After some cautious, worried questions from Misato, they had come to find out that Kaworu hadn’t been taking care of himself properly. He hadn’t been drinking a lot of water, and he still didn’t know much about his body and its limits, so he became dehydrated.

          Luckily, Misato predicted that he’d be fine after a day off from work. Unluckily for Shinji, though, that meant that he had to go solo in his cleaning duties, while his boyfriend slept, sat around, and drank lots of water.

          In a foul mood, Shinji dropped off his bucket and brush to Misato, who handed him a mop.

          “You doing okay, Shinji?” Misato asked. She warily looked at the storm clouds gathering around Shinji’s head.

          “Fine,” Shinji grunted out.

          Misato kept looking at him for a minute. She smiled and wiped off a smudge on Shinji’s chin.

          “I’m guessing you hate doing this,” Misato commented.

          Shinji hesitated on saying anything. However, with Misato’s eyes probing him for an answer, he nodded.

          “Thought so,” Misato said.

          With a flourish, her hair swinging around, Misato grabbed another mop and a bucket filled with clean water.

          “Let’s go,” Misato said. She headed off to their next destination, the temple’s outhouses.

          Shinji’s mouth hung open. Once he realized what Misato was saying, he hastened to catch up with her, grinning wildly.

          His bad mood dissipated into thin air like steam rising from a boiling pot. Misato joked around with him and made awful puns as they cleaned, making it seem less like a chore and more like an activity that two friends were doing together.

          Misato continued to accompany him throughout the day. She answered calls on her walkie-talkie a few times from Hyuga or Aoba, but she kept helping him clean no matter what ‘shit’ the others wanted her to do.

          Exhausted, Shinji went to his bedroom. He flopped down on the floor next to a sleeping Mari. Kaworu sat inside, drinking a juice box and reading a fashion magazine.

          “You wanna see this?” Kaworu asked Shinji, holding up a page.

           “Maybe later,” Shinji replied. His voice was muffled, for his face was pressed to the floor.

          Kaworu shrugged and kept reading about teenage fashion.

          The room was comfortably silent for a few minutes.

          “Sakura said earlier that she likes the small hats with flowers on the brims. I agreed, but I said that I liked the big, frilly hats better,” Kaworu said, striking up a conversation.

          Shinji hummed.

          “I also looked at the wedding section,” Kaworu commented.

          Shinji looked up at him.

          “Wedding dresses are extremely expensive,” Kaworu said, wetting a finger and flipping to the next page.

           “Are they?” Shinji asked.

          “Yep.”

          Shinji lazily crawled over to him. He laid his head on Kaworu’s shoulder so he could see the magazine as well.

          “Is it weird that I kinda want to try on a wedding dress?” Kaworu asked.

          Shinji blinked.

          “I dunno,” Shinji replied. “If you want to, you should.”

          Kaworu smiled. He moved the pages closer so that Shinji could see better.

          “This is the one I like,” Kaworu said. He pointed to a light pink, designer wedding dress. It had a blue and yellow floral pattern, and a fabric rose pinned onto its waist.

          “Let’s order it then,” Shinji teased. Kaworu grinned.

          “What food are we ordering?” Mari’s quiet, half-asleep drawl came from the other side of the room.

           “I’m getting a wedding dress,” Kaworu answered.

          “Oh,” Mari said. Her blankets shifted, and she emerged from the layers, wiping her eyes.

          “When’s the wedding?” Mari asked.

          Kaworu looked at Shinji.

          “Next summer,” Shinji answered.

          “Nice,” Mari said, smiling. Her eyes opened and adjusted to the darkness of the night.

          “Jeez, how long was I sleeping?” Mari grumbled.

          “Nearly seven hours,” Kaworu answered. 

          Mari shrugged. She scratched her butt.

          “I’m hungry,” Mari said. She got up, and without much pomp and circumstance, left the room, still scratching her butt.

          Kaworu shook his head fondly.

          Kaworu and Shinji soon went to sleep. In the girl’s room, Mari wasn’t able to fall back asleep, because she slept the day away. Using the moonlight and a pen she found off the ground, she stayed up until sunrise solving old crosswords.

          The three children worked and cleaned for the next three days. In their break times, Kaworu practiced teleporting just himself, and then himself, Shinji, and Mari, to places around the temple. He wanted to make sure that he was able to transport them to the laboratory without any complications.

          The three planned to spend two nights walking around and exploring the laboratory. Misato had worked there for years, so she was confident that she knew the floorplan. Also, the four decided that they would select their food beforehand and leave it in the temple, and Kaworu would pop in and grab it whenever they needed it, so they could carry more useful supplies.

          The four went to bed early the day before they left, so they could stay up all night tomorrow if they needed to.

\-----

          Misato hoisted her backpack over her shoulders. Hyuga enthusiastically waved good-bye to her, and Aoba slowly waved his hand a few times as well. She smiled, gave them a peace sign, and told them to wish her luck.

          After a bit of thinking and discussion among her, Hyuga, and Aoba, they decided that Hyuga would be the de-facto leader of the group while Misato was away. Misato’s walkie-talkie would be entrusted to Asuka, the best leader of the children.

          Kaworu, Mari, Shinji, and Misato held hands, and with a picture of the laboratory in his head, Kaworu teleported them there.

          The four of them landed in the laboratory’s parking lot. The building stood tall and important, with multiple gates and card-scanners. The company’s logo, a red fig leaf, starkly contrasted against the white walls.

          “It’s just like I remembered,” Misato said, regarding the building with pride and puffing up her chest.

          The four scanned the parking lot for lurkers hiding away. They found one in the shadow of a car. It was a woman Misato didn’t know, so Mari flung herself forwards and slammed her favorite knife into the woman’s head.

          Another lurker laid inside a car, but it was already dead, with a square-shaped hole inside its head.

          “Oh! Here’s Aoba’s car!” Misato exclaimed, running over to a green, beat-up van. Its customized license plate read “2COOLFORU,” and inside the car lay a bobble-head Hawaiian girl.

          Misato looked around for any other of her coworkers’ cars. They found Hyuga’s, a plain, gray vehicle, and then Ritsuko’s, a purple convertible with cat-themed bumper stickers.

          Pulling away from the group, Mari moved over to look at a pricey convertible with leather seats. She pressed her face against the window on the driver’s side and saw familiar pictures of young Kaji and Misato, smiling and laughing.

          “Hey! I found Kaji’s car!” Mari yelled, her voice breathy with excitement.

          “Kaji’s?” Misato answered, running up to see it for herself.

          “It is Kaji’s…” Misato said, confirming it with her own eyes.

          “Why was he here?” Misato asked, fiddling with the car door handles. It was locked.

          “How come you don’t know if he was at work that day?” Mari asked. “You worked with him. Weren’t you there?”

          Misato scrunched up her face.

          “No, when the outbreak started, I wasn’t working. I was on a train headed to my grandparent’s house,” Misato explained.

          "Oh yeah," Mari said, remembering the train.

          Misato tried to open the backseat doors, but they were locked as well.

          “Well, this means that he was here,” Mari said, making up her mind.

          “No, not necessarily,” Misato warned. “We should wait until we look through the building to get our hopes up.”

          Mari snorted, but didn’t openly disagree with her.

          The four walked to the entrance of the towering building. Misato, out of habit, put a hand in her pocket to check for her key card. She laughed when she caught herself. However, the fact that the doors refused to open wasn’t a laughing matter.

           “How are we going to get inside?” Misato asked. She groped the wall, searching for anything that could let them through.

          “Looking for a secret entrance?” Mari smirked. Misato blushed, but kept looking.

          After a few minutes of touching the non-activated key card scanner, banging on the door, and kicking the wall frustratedly, Misato gave up on her efforts.

          “Let’s try going around the building. Maybe the back entrance is open,” Misato said.

          The three kids followed her to the back of the building. It looked exactly like the front, just without the logo.

          Misato tried pulling open the doors, but they didn’t budge.

          “Fuck, why don’t you just open?!” Misato swore, giving them a harsh pull. Even with all of her strength, they didn’t open.

          “Maybe there’s a vent that we can get into,” Mari mused. “Like in those spy movies?”

          “’Like in those spy movies?’ This is a government facility!” Misato replied, ticked off. “This building was built to be near-impossible to penetrate!”

          Mari shrugged, a lazy, cat-like grin on her face. She combed around the bottom of the building, looking for a vent. Shinji and Kaworu watched her disappear under some bushes.

          “Any other ideas?” Misato asked them. All of her gung-ho had drained out of her.

          The two boys shook their heads.

          “Thought so...” Misato whispered, sighing. She felt the glass windows on the doors.

          “I suppose we can use our guns to shoot open the doors. It is bullet-proof glass, and it’ll definitely bring a swarm of lurkers, but there’s no other alternative option,” Misato said, thinking out loud and staring at the doors.

          “Space guy here can teleport us back if there’s danger,” Misato continued, half-heartedly gesturing to Kaworu. Kaworu didn’t know whether to be insulted or not.

           “Okay, so that’s the plan. We’ll use up almost all of our bullets, but it’ll work. Probably! And even a .0008 percent chance has the chance to succeed!” Misato said, motivating herself.

          “Now, let’s get out our guns—”

          “I found a vent!” Mari’s cheerful, oblivious voice piped up, interrupting Misato.

          “You’re kidding me,” Misato said, feeling relieved yet annoyed at the same time.

          The three stumbled over through the thorny bushes to join Mari. Inside the bushes was a well-hidden vent. Bars covered it, but with neglect, the joints of the metal had begun to rust.

          “I got this,” Mari assured them. She cracked her knuckles and flexed her muscly arms. In one fell swoop, she grasped a bar and ripped it right off of the vent.

          Kaworu gave her applause, and Mari preened under the praise. Shinji and Misato joined in the clapping, unsure.

          Mari made quick work of the three other bars. She chucked them to the side. Next, she tore off the frame of the vent, the screws flying to the sides.

          Mari winked, and started her journey up the vent. Misato restrained herself from rolling her eyes.

          “Let me go next,” Misato said. She shimmied herself into the vent.

          Shinji let himself go next, and Kaworu followed. Kaworu placed the vent behind them, sealing up the passage again.

          “It’s dark in here,” Shinji commented. He could only barely make out the shapes of Misato’s legs and feet.

          “Oh, hey, Kaworu, do your thing. The glowy thing,” Mari said.

          Kaworu lit his body up. The three other people’s eyes squinted and painfully adjusted to the sudden light.

          “Is that too bright?” Kaworu asked.

          “A little,” Shinji answered.

          Kaworu brought down his light blue glow until it shone softly.

          “Much better,” Mari hummed.

          The four kept on crawling through the vents. Kaworu took the time to admire Shinji’s butt.

          “Wait, I just realized something,” Mari said, stopping in her tracks.

          “What’s wrong?” Misato asked, fearing for the worst.

          “Kaworu could have just opened the doors for us,” Mari explained.

          The four were silent.

          “Could you have opened them?” Misato asked Kaworu.

          Kaworu thought for a second.

          “Yeah,” Kaworu answered.

          Misato groaned. Mari kept going, picking up the pace a little. They kept moving for a few minutes.

          “My arms are killing me,” Misato said. “Do you see anything, Mari?”

          “Yes, I think I see an opening,” Mari replied.

          The four crawled into a wide intersection of the vents. They all were able to have their own space, and they huddled around the vent’s opening.

          “Hey, flashlight, can you help us look down there?” Mari said.

          They heard movement from below. A few groans assaulted their ears in the silence. Their bodies stiffened.

          Kaworu shined his light downwards. Through the gaps, they saw one of the largest groups of lurkers they had ever seen.

          “Holy shit,” Mari swore.


	14. An Unhealthy Dose of Déjà Vu

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Misato and the kids explore Nerv's headquarters. Shinji and Kaworu are uncomfortably reminded of their pasts, and secrets come to light.

          The four of them were too shocked to move. They stared downwards, not wanting to believe what they saw. There were about twenty lurkers wandering below, and after seeing the light and hearing their voices, they concentrated under the vent’s opening, preventing them from escaping downwards.

          “No…” Shinji said, his voice trailing off.

          “L-let’s keep moving,” Misato stuttered. She pointed them to go through the rightmost vent.

          “This is the way to the control room, where the majority of people worked. Let’s go,” Misato said.

          “I’ve got a bad feeling about this,” Mari said.

          The four kept going. The noise from the lurkers faded.

          Mari found another vent opening. Like before, they gathered around it, and Kaworu shone his light through.

          Misato recognized the room below as the communal baths.

          “Hello?” Misato asked, hoping to lure out anything hiding. When no lurkers emerged, she sighed in relief.

          “Let’s go down through here,” Misato said.

          Mari unhinged the opening’s covering.

          “Let me go first,” Kaworu said.

          Kaworu floated down to the bottom level. He watched for any signs of movement, and whistled just in case. The coast clear, he stepped back under the opening.

          “I’ll catch you all,” Kaworu said.

          Mari came down first. Misato went after her. Lastly, Shinji jumped, and Kaworu caught and hugged him close to his body.

          Shinji laughed. He wrapped his arms around Kaworu. He felt something a bit weird on Kaworu’s arms. They were sweating quite a bit. Shinji pulled away from Kaworu, looking concerned.

          “Are you okay?” Shinji asked Kaworu.

          “Maybe a bit tired, but I’m all right,” Kaworu assured him. The repeated use of his powers was taking a small toll on his body, but it wasn’t much of a problem for him yet. But, he knew he had to watch himself. He couldn’t let himself be careless again and faint. Not this time.

          The four of them searched the baths. Kaworu shone his light overhead, making it a dazzling yellow, mimicking an electric light.

          Shinji went through to the adjacent room. There were rows of lockers, and after picking up a beaten-up pair of tennis shoes that smelled like death itself, he presumed he had found the men’s locker room. He threw them across the room, and they landed on a pile of dirty, faded bras.

          Maybe not, then.

          “Shinji, where did you go?” Misato’s voice quietly came from the other room.

          “I’m in here,” Shinji answered.

          The other three came into the locker room. Kaworu’s light illuminated the room further, and they were able to read the posters plastered neatly on the walls stating Nerv’s rules and regulations.

          “This facility and its workers have the duty to protect humanity,” Mari read off. “All members are expected to uphold a community of trust, safety, and acceptance.”

          “Sounds very serious,” Kaworu commented.

          “It was,” Misato said. “We did joke around a lot, but whatever dirty secrets we heard, we kept them to ourselves.”

          “Did you know a lot, then?” Mari asked. Misato scratched her leg.

          “Not really, I guess,” Misato replied. “I knew some stuff, like the holding of hostages and the blackmailing of officials when our political relations went sour, but I didn’t know it all.”

          Misato walked over to her locker. She never locked it, not really caring if anyone stole anything replaceable, like her sunglasses or her gym shorts. She ruffled through her stuff.

          “Ritsuko knew more than I did,” Misato commented.

          Shinji twitched at the mention of Ritsuko’s name. Kaworu shared a look with him, but didn't comment on it.

          “Aha! I’ve missed my jacket,” Misato sing-songed. She pulled out a red leather jacket with a high collar. She hugged it to her face, and then hurriedly shrugged off her black jacket to put her red one on.

          “Ah, nothing beats the feeling of leather,” Misato laughed.

          Mari held herself back from rolling her eyes.

          Misato walked over to Ritsuko’s locker. She clicked her tongue when it refused to open, locked tight.

          “What did I expect,” Misato sighed. “What’s she even got to hide in there? Pictures of her cat?”

          Misato pulled open the door leading to the men’s locker room.

          “Let’s try and see if Kaji’s stuff is in there,” Misato said.

          The three kids followed Misato to a locker in the corner of the room. Shinji noted that, similarly to the women’s locker room, there was a pile of unwashed underwear laying on the floor. He had the urge to pick them up and place them into the nearby hamper, but he resisted himself.

          “Damn! Locked,” Misato said, trying to open Kaji’s locker. “Let me try and see if I can remember his locker combination…”

          The four heard a rustling noise in the hallway outside the door. They stayed silent, waiting for any kind of voice. Instead, they heard pained gurgling, the tell-tale sound of a lurker.

          “Ugh, nearly got my hopes up there,” Misato grumbled, turning back to the locker.

          Misato tried a few numbers. After her fourth try, the lock clicked, and she could open the locker door.

          “Success,” Misato smiled.

          Inside Kaji’s locker, was, unsurprisingly, another picture of Misato and him, taped onto the inside of the door. There was also a lighter, two full packs of cigarettes, and a rock CD.

          “Huh. Where’s his jacket?” Misato wondered out-loud. She searched through his piles of rumpled slacks, ties, and formal shirts.

          “He usually wore a gray jacket while he worked, but it’s not here,” Misato said. “Let’s keep looking around. Maybe we can find something in the main room.”

          “That’s if we can even get out of here,” Mari complained. “There are so many lurkers in here. Sheesh, how come nobody decided to leave? Did they n0t want to abandon their jobs, even in a zombie apocalypse?!”

          Misato glared at her.

          “We’ll find a way,” Misato said.

          Misato went to the door that led out into the main hallway. She placed her ear against the door, listening for any other lurkers. She heard multiple sources of sound, which included moaning and feet scraping against the ground.

          “There are quite a few of them out there,” Misato reluctantly relayed.

          “Unless you can shoot ‘em all, Kaworu, we can’t take on that many at once,” Mari said, looking at her best friend.

          “I don’t think I should use my powers more than is absolutely necessary. It’s wearing me out to just continuously use my light,” Kaworu honestly replied.

          “Bummer,” Mari said, blowing off some of her bangs from her face.

          The four decided to rest in the locker rooms. Mari checked her watch. It read eleven thirty-nine a.m. Kaworu teleported himself back to the temple to grab their lunches, quickly scarfed his down, and immediately fell asleep on one of the hard wooden benches. The light above their heads faded quite a bit, making them strain their eyes to see each other.

          Misato told Mari and Shinji to keep quiet, so the lurkers outside their door would wander somewhere else.

          Bored, Shinji went back to the ladies’ locker room. He had asked Misato where Maya’s locker was. She told him that it was right next to Ritsuko’s, on the left side.

          Shinji tried to solve his former near-adoptive mothers’ locker combinations. He didn’t know why he wanted to find out more about them, for little could make him feel better about how they lived before their sudden deaths, but the desire in him to find something— _anything_ , was strong.

          Shinji first inputted Maya’s birthdate into her locker combination. That didn’t do anything, which made him lose a little hope. However, after he tried Ritsuko’s birthdate, the door unlocked. Shinji smiled a sad smile.

          The inside of Maya’s locker was fairly neat. She had organized her shirts and pants and hung them all up on coat hangers. On the other hand, she had just tossed inside plastic food wrappers, and had never bothered to clean them up.

          Shinji thought he remembered Maya saying something about how she was the kind of person to say to herself, ‘I clean that up tomorrow,’ day after day.

          Maya also had taped up a copy of her and Ritsuko’s weekly work schedules. She had circled the hours they shared, and drawn red and pink hearts around Ritsuko’s name.

          Shinji found a copy of her work identification card. He looked at the cute, young, smiling face in her picture. She seemed unsure and awkward in front of the camera, as one of her eyes was slightly squinted, and her mouth wasn’t upturned fully in a relaxed smile.

          Shinji felt tears collect in his eyes. They ran down his cheeks. The taste of them awoke him from his unbridled staring at the picture. He put the ID card in his coat pocket and zipped up his pocket, keeping it as safe as he could manage.

          Wiping off his face with his sleeve, Shinji stepped towards Ritsuko’s locker. He tried her birthday, and then Maya’s, but no luck. Having no other ideas, he tried his own birthday. Of course, the locker didn’t open, but it didn’t hurt to try it.

          Shinji wasted more time by talking with Mari and Misato in the bath room. They shut the sliding door, so they could speak in hushed tones without bring over more lurkers. Kaworu woke up after two hours, and the four checked the door again.

          Hearing no movement, they cautiously opened the door. The hallways were bare.

          “Let’s get moving,” Misato said, taking off in a jog towards the main control room.

          Their feet made muffled noises on the stone floors. They reached the main control room in a few minutes. Misato peeked around the nearby hallway corners to see if anything had followed them. She saw nothing.

          “We’re good for now,” Misato whispered. She tried to push open the main room’s door, but it was pretty heavy.

          “Oof! I forgot that these are a pain to open without electricity,” Misato said. “Give me a hand, Mari.”

          With Mari’s help, the two women managed to push the door open. The four squeezed themselves inside.

          “Haha! We managed to finally get here. What a relief—”

          Misato’s triumphant sentence was interrupted by the appearance of seven walkers, all standing at attention from all across the room.

          “Shit,” Misato swore. All four of them bunched together, still standing next to the door.

          Mari brought out her knife.

          “Is this going to get ugly?” Mari asked.

          “This isn’t good,” Shinji commented, starting to panic.

          Kaworu’s mind raced, trying to estimate how many lurkers he could kill off before he passed out.

          Misato tried to think of a plan. She looked to her left. Above them were the multiple platforms that held the influential war officers from around the world. There seemed to be no lurkers up there.

          “Let’s try to get up there,” Misato yelled, pointing up to the platforms. She ran over, and the three kids followed her. As the tallest of the four, she hoisted herself up first. She then pulled up Shinji, Mari, and then Kaworu. Her arms burned and shook, but she managed to get all of them safely up there.

          They stared down at the herd of lurkers which grabbed the walls under them, desperately trying to reach them. They caught their breaths.

          Misato pulled herself up first. She looked at the door that was on the highest platform. That was their only way out. She massaged her sore arms.

          “We need to get onto Gendo’s platform, and then we can get out of here,” Misato informed the kids.

          “Too bad this room was a bust,” Mari sighed. “I wish we could search through here. There’s probably some cool stuff in this room.”

          Misato nodded, agreeing. She looked over to the computers and file cabinets that lay down there, ignored by the once-human lurkers madly scrambing to get some human flesh. Misato frowned when she took a good look at the lurkers, and recognized three of their faces and haircuts.

          “I’m sorry,” Misato apologized to them. She didn’t know why she felt the need to do so, but it felt right. She had worked, and sometimes talked with, some of the lurkers below her.

          Shinji was silent. He had a feeling of déjà vu, which made the blood in his veins turn ice-cold.

          “Misato?” Shinji asked.

          “Yes?” Misato replied.

          “Is Gendo a popular name?”

          “Why do you ask?”

          “No reason,” Shinji lied.

          Misato thought for a bit.

          “Not really,” she answered. “It’s pretty uncommon. I only knew one person named Gendo, and he used to be my boss.”

          “Huh,” Shinji replied. He scraped his foot on the floor, looking down.

          “Hey, Misato, what was your boss’ last name?” Shinji asked, his foot stalling.

          “It was Ikari,” Misato answered.

          Shinji’s head lifted up. He fixed Misato with a disbelieving, uncomfortable grimace.

          “You’re not kidding?” Shinji asked, his voice wavering.

          Misato stared back at him, feeling unsettled.

          “Is there something wrong, Shinji?” Misato asked. Shinji laughed.

          “I want to get out of here,” Shinji replied. He laughed again, his laugh coming out darker than his first one.

          ‘My father used to work here. What another strange coincidence. I’m standing where he used to work. I’m right by where the man who abandoned me, leaving me alone and stranded, used to be! Haha! How fucked up is that?’ Shinji thought to himself. His stomach turned, and he felt like he was going to be sick.

          ‘So, my father, Ritsuko, Maya, and Misato used to work here. That’s so strange. Why do all of my parental figures seem to come from here? Is this a joke?!’ Shinji thought.

          “Why do you want to leave?” Mari asked. She was incredibly confused by the brooding yet almost amused smile on Shinji’s face. He wasn’t looking at any of them in the eye.

          “Hello? Did you hear me?” Mari spoke again, stepping forward.

          “Shinji, what’s the matter? Are you feeling alright?” Kaworu asked.

          “My father used to work here,” Shinji stated.

          “What?” Misato asked, tilting her head.

          “My father!” Shinji snapped, staring angrily at Misato for not understanding. “Gendo Ikari! My father! The person who left me. The worst excuse of a parent in the entire world!”

          “Whoa, Shinji,” Misato said, holding up her hands. “What are you saying?”

          “I’m saying that, somehow, someway, everyone I know or used to know and care about worked in this place! What the hell!” Shinji said, messing up his hair with his hands.

          “You’re Mr. Ikari’s son?” Misato asked, her eyes wide. She had seen her boss many times with his wife, and a few times with her son, but she had never connected the small boy to Shinji.

          Shinji crossed his arms.

          The other three glanced at each other, silently conveying their shared worry and confusion.

          “Um, hey, Shinji?” Misato asked, her voice slow. She waited to see if Shinji would lash out at her. He didn’t, so she kept speaking.

          “What happened to Gendo and Yui?” Misato questioned.

          Shinji’s breath hitched. He was trying to hold back his repressed thoughts and emotions concerning his parents, but they were forced to the surface by Misato’s questions.

          Shinji simultaneously wanted to cry because of his feelings of his mother, and also punch something as hard as he could, without caring if he hurt himself or not, because of the frustration and anger he felt towards his father. His body settled for crying and tightly hugging himself as he tried to get his thoughts back into control.

          “My mother is dead,” Shinji said. He hiccuped at the end of his sentence. Kaworu rushed forward to embrace him, and Shinji let himself sob grossly into Kaworu’s shoulder. Kaworu closed his eyes and petted Shinji’s hair.

          “Oh, Shinji,” Misato said, her eyes welling up in response to his words.

          They waited about ten minutes for Shinji to calm down. They all sat down, ignoring the lurkers still blindly gravitating towards them.

          “How did your mother die?” Misato asked.

          Shinji explained how she had gotten bitten, and then turned into a lurker, no matter what he and his father tried to do.

          Shinji held his face in his hands.

          “My father left me to die after my mother passed away,” Shinji said. “How could he do that? I was just a kid, and he deserted me, by myself, with no way of surviving…”

          “I’m sure he meant to come back,” Misato said, trying to assure him.

          “Whatever,” Shinji said, not agreeing with her at all. Talking about all of this was a waste of time.

          “Let’s just keep moving,” Shinji said. Misato’s face fell.

          Misato opened the door behind them. They pushed past an empty room, and came to a staircase.

          Misato walked down the stairs and passed the weapons room. That room had been accessible only with a code, so she knew it was a lost cause. They wandered around the floor.

          “Where next?” Mari asked.

          “I’m not sure. Maybe we can try the robot testing room?” Misato said.

          Misato guided them across the hall and to a spacious room. The ceiling seemed to stretch incredibly high above them.

          “Just how huge were these ‘robots?!’” Mari exclaimed, a twinkle in her eye. Misato snorted, amused.

          “What kind of place do you think we are?” Misato countered. “You think a government facility would spend millions of dollars to create giant robots?!”

          Misato laughed. Mari glared at her.

          Kaworu and Shinji looked around the room, both of them feeling a strange familiarity, like they had been in this room before. Shinji shrugged off his déjà vu, but Kaworu’s stomach dropped.

          “How many floors are in this place?” Kaworu asked Misato, his face a calm façade.

          “Well, there’s three main floors. We also have a basement, too, but I’m not sure how to get down there…” Misato answered, scratching her chin.

          “Do you have any ideas?” Mari asked Kaworu.

          “I think going to the basement is worth a try,” Kaworu smiled. He really hoped that his hunches were wrong.

          Misato concentrated on remembering the floor plans. She knew there were multiple ways to enter the basement, but she herself had only been down there once.

          “Come on, we’re going to have to do a lot of walking,” Misato sighed, leading them back into the hallway.

          The group ran into a lurker on the next set of stairs they descended.

          “Aww…” Misato said. She froze, staring at the lurker with pity.

          “What?” Mari whispered back to her.

          “That was the intern that got me coffee every day,” Misato said, her eyes drooping.

          “She was so nice,” Misato said. The lurker came close to Misato, and Misato stared the lurker in the face.

          Misato pulled out a machete and cut the lurker’s head off. Its head fell off and bounced off the ground. The lurker kept moaning, apparently still alive.

          “Watch for the spray,” Misato warned. She stepped on the lurker’s head, her boot crushing its skull. Tainted, dirty brown lurker blood sprayed forward, in an arc that would have hit them if they hadn’t stepped back.

          Misato walked with a much heavier gait, her good mood gone for good.

          The four ignored another lurker they saw on the opposite side of the hallway. It spotted them, and it slowly limped towards them.

          “That one doesn’t matter,” Misato said. “The testing room is right here.”

          Misato opened the third door from the left side of the hallway. She shut and locked it behind them.

          The room they entered seemed creepy to the kids. Misato paid it little mind, having been in there many times.

          The children looked at the rows of pills and the plethora of gray equipment, and felt the lack of any love or care in the room’s atmosphere.

          “So, what, or who, were they testing here?” Mari asked, letting out an uncomfortable laugh.

          “We tested any new drugs or medicines that were given to us,” Misato explained. “Volunteers came from all over to test them. I remember there being a few kids that they tested on too, but… well, that doesn’t matter now.”

          Kaworu noticed a distinct logo on one of the papers that laid next to a container of pills. At first he second-guessed himself, not wanting to believe that he was seeing that.

          But, after stepping closer to the paper, he made the pattern out clearly. Seven eyes in front of a triangle facing downwards. And, he saw the familiar apple and snake curled around it.

          He was looking at Seele’s logo. The very company that had created him, held him hostage for years, and experimented on him. This company was affiliated with Seele.

          Kaworu slowly put the paper down. He turned towards Misato again, and casually leaned against the edge of the counter. He stared at her as she focused on reading some other papers.

          This time, he felt no friendship or trusting feelings towards her. She was an adult. With all of the odds, she probably knew everything that had happened to him. Kaworu began to hate her.

          “Sooo, Misato,” Kaworu started, brushing off an imaginary piece of lint from his shoulder. Misato turned to look at him.

          “Did you know that this company was affiliated with Seele?” Kaworu continued, his voice innocent.

          “Well, yeah,” Misato said, going back to her papers. “Nerv had a close business relationship with many of the top executives of Seele. We even had many of their best scientists working in our facility.”

          “Oh. What were those scientists… working on?” Kaworu asked.

          Misato shrugged.

          “I don’t know,” Misato said. “Something with a rare animal. They mostly worked in the basement, so I never got to see them.”

          “What happened to the animal? Did it escape, perhaps?” Kaworu probed, finally looking at Misato with intense, suspicious eyes.

          “Yes, as a matter of fact,” Misato said.

          “It left in the month of April, seven years ago,” Kaworu stated.

          “That’s right. It was such a scandal,” Misato replied, chuckling. She caught the strangeness of Kaworu’s statement after a second.

          “That’s right,” Misato repeated, her voice guarded. “How did you know that?”

          Kaworu laughed. His right hand landed in a neatly-stacked pile of documents, and he swept them to the floor. Shinji jumped at the loud, whooshing noise.

          “I can’t believe it!” Kaworu said, staring at the ceiling. “How could it have come to be that I would arrive again at the place I was kept at, years and years ago?”

          “Kaworu?” Shinji asked.

          “How unlucky am I?” Kaworu said, looking at Shinji intensely with uncontrolled emotion. He gripped his fists.

          The three humans saw wetness gather in Kaworu’s eyes before his light disappeared, and the room was plunged into darkness.


	15. A Painful Reunion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The mystery gang goes into the basement, Kaworu gets a nosebleed, and Misato reunites with someone special!   
> Like, zoinks!

          Shinji grabbed for the walls. He looked around, trying to adjust himself to the darkness of the room. Without his sight, the room seemed to stretch out for miles.

          “Kaworu?” Shinji asked.

          None of the humans heard Kaworu give an answer back.

“What’s going on? Kaworu?” Misato asked. Her foot slipped on a piece of paper strewn on the floor, and she kept herself from tripping by blindly grabbing Mari's shoulder and retaining her balance. Mari swore in pain.

          “Kaworu, what did you mean when you said ‘the place I was kept at?’ Is this really the same place?” Mari questioned, rubbing her shoulder.

          “I believe so,” Kaworu said after a moment.

          The only indication the others got in the dark room that Kaworu was crying was his shaky voice. 

          “I want to make sure, though. I want to go to the basement,” Kaworu continued, hiccupping. His voice sounded as wet as a towel submerged in water.

          “You don’t have to do this, dude.” Mari held up her hands in the dim room. “Seriously. We can go back to the temple if you need to rest.”

          Kaworu shook his head. He relit the room, and the other three flinched at the sudden brightness.

          "We've come very far. Let's keep moving," Kaworu said. He sighed, and started mumbling under his breath as he scanned through the sheets on the floor detailing Nerv’s experiments' progresses.

          “I hope I’m wrong,” Kaworu whispered. He tried to find his own report, but he couldn't. 

          Mari, Shinji, and Misato stared at Kaworu anxiously. He felt their eyes on him, and gave them an fake smile to try and calm them down.

          “I just need a few minutes,” Kaworu stated. "Why don't you three go and take a break?" 

          “Of course,” Mari said, linking arms with Shinji and Misato. She guided them out of the room, glancing back at Kaworu, who had his eyes glued to the page he held.

          “I think he needs some space,” Mari said, chewing on her lip. She looked at the ground.

          “Yeah,” Misato agreed. “Where should we go, though?”

          Mari surveyed the dark hallway.

          “Everything looks and sounds clear, for now,” Mari said. “I suppose we should find a place to rest that’s secure. Maybe we could go back to the locker rooms?”

          “Sounds fine,” Misato shrugged. She led them downstairs with her mental picture of the building’s layout.

          “I don’t like what Kaworu's planning to do,” Mari blurted out as they were walking.

          “What do you mean?” Misato questioned.

          “I don’t think we should go to the basement. With the way Kaworu’s acting, it’s possible that we might find something terrible,” Mari said, her tone ominous.

          “I’ve got a bad feeling, too,” Shinji said, shivering. “I don’t know why, but I do.”

          Misato sighed.

          “We shouldn’t have come here,” Misato muttered under her breath. Shinji heard her, and he truly agreed.

          The three humans went into the locker rooms.

          “I'm going to lay down on the bench. My feet are killing me. If you guys are antsy, you can keep trying the doors. Maybe one of them will open,” Misato said.

          Mari sat down and rested next to Misato. Shinji felt okay, so he went further into the locker room.

          Shinji headed again to Ritsuko’s locker. It puzzled him that he didn’t know what the combination could be. He wracked his brain for any numbers that Ritsuko mentioned, anything that could be a code.

          Shinji came up with nothing.

          Shinji dejectedly tried various numbers in the lock. It didn’t open. He then inputted Misato’s birthday, just on a whim. He was about to give up, but the lock miraculously opened after he tried another set of numbers.

          He had inputted his father’s birthday.

         “What the fuck?” Shinji asked himself. He opened the locker door, but the inside was too dark for him to make out.

          Shinji put a fist inside. He pulled out a stack of letters, and he bustled over to Misato in excitement.

          “I was able to open Ritsuko’s locker,” Shinji told her.

          “What?!” Misato gasped, sitting up. “Even I didn’t know the combination!”

          Shinji thrusted the letters towards her.

          “I found these,” Shinji said.

          Misato rummaged through her knapsack for a flashlight. She shook it and hit it against her palm, and it flickered on.

          Misato called to Mari to stand up, and they huddled together on a bench, reading the letters together. They read together for a few minutes in stunned silence.

          “Oh my god,” Mari said, her hand flying to her mouth. “Kaworu _was_ staying here.”

          Shinji had grabbed a report of Ritsuko’s that detailed Kaworu’s stay, along with how Ritsuko had checked up on him from time to time. She was one of the personnel who sedated him with injections of morphine. Ritsuko had wrote of her struggles with 'the rebellious patient that frequently fought with the doctors.'

          “He’s nothing short of a nightmare,” Shinji read off of Ritsuko’s report. He bristled with the attack against the boy he loved, but he also felt sadness after thinking bad thoughts about his foster mother.

          “How could she have called them that? Ritsuko was so kind,” Shinji said, not even reading the paper anymore.

          “I’m sure that she really didn’t know him,” Misato replied, rubbing Shinji’s shoulder. “I think they never got the chance to know each other. If he hadn’t been her patient, I’m sure she would have loved him.”

          “Yeah, you're probably right,” Shinji nodded. "Kaworu is really a great person once you spend enough time with him."

          He turned to Misato. “Thank you.”

          Misato smiled, and she waved her hand to dismiss his thanks.

          Mari kept on reading the letters. Once she started the next page, her eyes widened, and she started furiously ripping up the paper.

          "What are you doing?!” Misato asked, trying to wrench the letter pieces out of her hands.

          “Nothing!" Mari grumbled.

          “Then, why did you rip it up?” Misato asked. She bent down, glared at Mari, and started picking up parts of the torn letters.

          “No reason,” Mari snarled, folding her arms.

          “Don’t lie,” Misato ordered. “What did they say?”

          “Yeah, what did she write?” Shinji asked.

          Mari closed her eyes and pretended that she couldn’t hear them.

          “Please,” Shinji pleaded. “If it’s something important, we need to know.”

          Mari’s lip twitched.

          “Any new information could help Kaworu,” Shinji said.

          Mari opened her eyes, but kept her expression steadfast.

          “Please,” Shinji said.

          Mari let out a long, overdrawn breath. She toyed with a lock of her hair and avoided Shinji’s gaze.

          “Ritsuko was… Well, she, um. God," Mari frowned, shaking her head.

          "How do I say this?" Mari said quietly. Misato and Shinji waited for her to speak.

          "She loved your dad,” Mari revealed.

          “What?” Misato spluttered, holding back a snort. “That’s impossible!”

          Mari stuck out her tongue at Misato.

          “She said that they had an affair going on. She was happy that it was their one-year anniversary,” Mari relayed. "That's what the letter was about."

          “So, they both were together?!” Misato shouted, rubbing her hands. “That’s awful… Poor Yui.”

          Shinji's face fell. He didn’t think that he could've hated his father any more than he already did, but he was wrong. His father cheated on his mother! Shinji remembered his father being completely distraught when his mother died.

          'He must have been faking everything. All of his loud sobs must have been a lie. There’s no way his father loved his mother. He had probably used her, like he had used Ritsuko,' Shinji thought bitterly.

          Shinji’s breath hitched, and Misato and Mari turned to him. Misato asked if he was all right.

          ‘Wait. Ritsuko said that she and Maya had been together for years,’ Shinji thought. He clutched his chest.

          ‘Was that a lie? Or, had Ritsuko been cheating, too? I don’t want to believe any of this…’ Shinji thought, his hands shaking.

          “Are you all right, Shinji?” Misato asked again. Shinji flinched, and he shook his head.

          “It’s nothing, though,” Shinji lied.

          “Are you sure?” Misato asked, her mouth thin. Shinji nodded.

          “I think we should head back to Kaworu,” Mari said. “We need to show him these papers.”

          Mari shoved the letters in her backpack. The three returned to the testing room, but they found it empty.

          “Did he try and find us? Should we go back?” Misato asked.

          “No,” Mari said. She held up a crinkled piece of paper that held a near-identical report of the one by Ritsuko that they had found. Mari turned to look at the doors that kept leading further into the basement.

          “He’s gone downstairs,” Mari said.

          “Why? Why did he go without us?” Misato asked.

          Mari handed her the report. Misato gulped as she skimmed through it.

          “We need to follow him,” Misato said.

\------

          About ten minutes before Misato, Shinji, and Mari went downstairs, Kaworu was still in the room. He stared at the foreboding door that lead downwards.

          “I need to verify if I’m right,” Kaworu said, his voice dangerously shaky. He turned back to the door where the others had gone out from.

          "I'm sorry, but I need to do this," Kaworu said.

          Kaworu walked down the stairs. He immediately recognized his surroundings, and his feet led him to his former room without him thinking about it.

          His room had been transformed. All of the furniture was gone, replaced by small desks and chairs and equipment for testing chemicals. Kaworu saw a broken syringe on the floor, and he stepped over the shards of glass. He ran his hand down the wall where his bed had been.

          “What a horrible world I lived in,” Kaworu said, his eyes lidded.

          Kaworu traced with his fingers the outlines of where his toys had laid, on the floor and on his desk.

          ‘I wanted nothing more than to be freed,’ Kaworu thought. ‘I hated living, and I was jealous of the children of the workers that would pass by my door.’

          Kaworu sat down on the floor. The cold tile stung against his ankles, so he shifted into a position with his head resting on his knees.

          ‘I envied the other children, but yet, I wished I could be like them. I wanted to be able to go outside whenever I wanted. I wanted to see the sunset like they could, I wanted to taste the sea, and I wanted to smell the flowers,’ Kaworu thought.

          Kaworu’s eyes flickered to the syringe on the floor. He shuddered, and the memories of his skin being punctured day after day with the needled instruments flooded his mind. Even today, seeing needles made him want to vomit.

          ‘The only people I could talk to were the workers that checked up on me,’ Kaworu thought. ‘I wanted to talk with other people. I wanted to make friends. I wanted to have somebody that was special to me.’

          Kaworu heard footsteps in the hallway. Shinji’s voice called out his name, and he smiled, his cheeks red.

          ‘Now, I think I have someone. Someone I’ve always wanted,’ Kaworu thought. ‘I love him.’

\------

          Shinji, Mari, and Misato split up to find Kaworu. They ran past Kaworu’s door without seeing it, and Kaworu emerged just as they left.

          “Where did they go?” Kaworu mused to himself.

          Kaworu walked slowly, his hands in his pockets. The hallway branched off into two sections, and he went right.

          Kaworu ignored the door Misato had gone into, remembering it had been nothing but an employee break room. He didn’t see Misato, who was kneeled, trying to look under the desks for him.

          ‘There’s probably nothing in there,’ Kaworu thought.

Kaworu continued walking. He went into the largest room, which had housed all of the testing supplies and caged animals. He heard shuffling inside. He presumed it was the others, and he raced around the corner to meet them.

          Instead, he ran into the bars of a cage that spanned half of the entire room. His nose cracked, and he groaned. He felt extreme pain, and blood began to flow from his nostrils.

          “Shit!” Kaworu swore. “I really don’t need this right now.”

          Kaworu pinched the bridge of his nose. He breathed deep breaths to calm himself down.

          Suddenly, a hand shot out from the cage and grabbed his collar, and Kaworu jumped and tried to get back from it. His efforts were useless, because the hand’s hold was unusually tight.

          A lurker’s face came from the bars. It tried to bite Kaworu’s face, but Kaworu avoided his teeth. Kaworu dodged the lurker’s frantic jaw, while his nose kept bleeding onto the floor. He finally just took off his shirt. The lurker snatched his hand back and began licking the blood off his shirt, and Kaworu grimaced. He pinched his nose again.

          ‘What are the lurkers doing so far underground? And, what is this cage?’ Kaworu asked himself.

          Kaworu turned his light power on. He saw that the cage was home to over twenty other lurkers, all of which were staring at him with beady, pinprick eyes, and moaning.

\------

          A few minutes earlier, Shinji was shouting into another empty room for Kaworu.

          “Kaworu! Where are you?”

          Shinji’s paranoid mind supplied images of Kaworu dead, and being eaten by lurkers like maggots on a dead animal’s corpse. He felt chills wrack his body, and he felt bile come up into his mouth. He tried to swallow it, but he couldn’t, and he threw up on the ground.

          Feeling woozy, Shinji stumbled into a table. The manila folders stacked on top of it fell onto the floor, along with a lengthy, heavy packet, that hit the concrete with a ‘thump!’

          Shinji sat down. His leg kicked something, and he felt around in the darkness for it. It was a flashlight, and he clicked it on.

          Shinji studied the entire room. The beam of light fell onto the heavy packet he had knocked over, which laid next to him on the floor. Curious, Shinji studied the cover. It read “Human Instrumentality Project.”

          Shinji opened it to a random page. It told of something called a Human “Ambulans Cadaver” Immunovirus, and the reports listed it as a virus with Class A deadliness, #198. He kept reading, and with each word, he got more and more confused.

          “The sole reason that this virus is not classified as Class S, or even Class SS, where only the top five viruses with a hundred percent fatality rate are categorized, is because this virus has a simple cure.”

          “What virus are they talking about?” Shinji asked. He flipped the page.

          “The virus can always be defeated with the injection of a blood sample taken from an immune organism. The only organism with immunity thus far is our Tabris, but surely whilst testing, more organisms will become immune. Tabris’ blood is crucial to the success of our project.”

          Shinji’s left leg began to fall asleep, and he shifted his sitting position. He forgot about the rush of finding Kaworu as he kept reading.

          “If not treated in time, the subject will remain zombie-like, with gray, clammy skin and thin, dead hair, but the subject’s brain will revert back to its original state. The change back takes a few days, and, until it’s completed, the subjects must be held down securely. While in the earliest stages, the subject’s skin will turn back into its healthy color, but some subject’s have still thirsted for blood while in that stage. The final change back is the subject’s ability to stomach food again. Once a subject can properly eat vegetables and rice, without throwing up or having diarrhea, the subject is cured.”

          Mari bursted into the room. The doors slammed into the wall, and Mari lowered her weapon when she saw Shinji.

          “What are you doing?” Mari asked, quirking her brow.

          “Huh?” Shinji asked, still engrossed in his reading.

          “Kaworu? Did you find Kaworu?” Mari questioned.

          At Kaworu’s name, Shinji blinked and stood up. He tucked the packet under his arm.

          “Well, come on, then!” Mari huffed, one foot already out the door.

          Shinji shook his head. “What was I doing?”

          Shinji ran out of the room. They split up, and after Shinji opened another door, he heard Misato scream.

\------

          A minute before Mari had found Shinji, Misato had incidentally stepped into the room where Kaworu was. She noticed something strange. The walls were lit up without the help of electricity. She thought it had something to do with the backup generators, but once she caught Kaworu standing there after she turned the first corner, and she realized why there was light.

          A greeting was half-way out of Misato’s mouth when she caught sight of the cage of lurkers, and her mouth hung open in horror. She recognized the lurker’s brown hair, tied up into a ponytail. A line of stubble laid on the lurker’s chin.

          Kaji, the lurker, and her former boyfriend, was sitting down in the cell, greedily licking blood off of Kaworu’s shirt. Kaworu was staring at him with a cocked eyebrow and a grimace.

          “K-K-K-Kaji?” Misato whispered. She stepped backwards in shock, and when Kaji’s lifeless eyes rolled around to meet hers, she screamed.

          Misato’s scream echoed in the room. It was primal, and full of agony.

          Misato’s legs gave out. Her knees fell painfully onto the floor.

          “Why the screaming?” Kaworu asked, dropping the hands covering his ears. “The cage is locked. They aren’t going to get you.”

          All of the lurkers inside the cage had focused on Misato because of her scream. She met the eyes of some more of her colleagues, and she moaned.

          “What’s happening?” Misato whispered.

          “Who knows?” Kaworu mused. “I faintly remember some of these guys, but I’m not sure why they’re caged up like this. Did this room even have a cage?”

          Misato started to sob.

          “No, it must have been installed,” Misato hiccupped.

          “Were you working down here?” Kaworu asked. The chill of the room started to get to him, and he shivered and rubbed his arms. He felt blood from his nosebleed drip into his mouth, and he spit the blood onto the ground.

          “No, I was in the upstairs maintenance crew. I had no idea this was down here,” Misato said.

          Misato reached her hand out to touch the bars in front of Kaji.

“I wouldn't try that if I were you,” Kaworu warned, his voice muffled with one hand blocking his nose to stop his nosebleed.

          Misato scowled at him before turning back to share a staring match with her former boyfriend. She smiled.

          “I know my boyfriend. He won’t hurt me, no matter what,” Misato said. Her hand creeped closer to the cage.

          “Isn’t that right, Kaji?” Misato grinned. “You remember me, right? It’s me, Misato. It’s been such a long time.”

          “Misato, I really think that’s a bad idea,” Kaworu warned again, his voice rising in pitch. His shoulders tensed, and he frantically looked from Misato to Kaji.

          “I’ve missed you a lot, Kaji,” Misato said. Her fingers touched the cool, metal surface of the bars.

          Kaji stared at her for a few seconds, and Misato’s shoulders relaxed. She turned back to smirk at Kaworu.

          “I told you that I knew he wouldn’t harm me,” Misato gloated. “We’ve been together since college.”

          Kaworu suddenly rushed forward towards her, and Misato failed to turn her head in time to see her hand being grabbed by Kaji. Kaji began to bite off Misato’s fingers, and Misato felt her bones snap.

          Misato jumped back, but not before Kaji had eaten the pointer, middle, and pinky fingers off of her right hand. She stared at her hand uncomprehendingly. Blood from the uneven stumps of her fingers began spurting out, and her face turned pale.

          “Is that your dominant hand?” Kaworu asked, frozen and terrified.

          Misato nodded before she started realizing what had happened. She looked at Kaji with a face full of betrayal, just to see him chewing with a satisfied smile. She took in a small breath, and cradled her hand to her chest. Her shirt rapidly became stained deep red with blood.

          “We need to stop the bleeding!” Kaworu shouted, blood still flowing out of his nose. “I’m transporting you back.”

          Mari ran into the room, slamming the doors. Shinji followed in after her. They stopped at the scene before them.

          Both Misato and Kaworu were bloody, and a large group of lurkers was staring at them from behind the bars of a cage.

          “What happened?” Mari asked.

          “I’ll explain later,” Kaworu said, swaying. “I need to get Misato back to the temple. She’s hurt!”

          “Do you have that much energy to make it there and back?” Mari asked. “Maybe we should all leave now.”

          “No!” Kaworu shouted. The world spun before him, but he forced his legs to keep standing. “We’ve come too far, now! We found this huge discovery!”

          “You look like shit, Kaworu!” Mari yelled. “We can come back another time!”

          “Yeah,” Shinji agreed, stepping closer to Kaworu, who seemed to be tottering on the edge of falling. “Yes, I want to know why these lurkers are here, but you do look awful. You need to rest. We need to rest.”

          “No!” Kaworu repeated. He ran his hands through his hair angrily.

          Kaworu hurried and teleported Misato back to the temple. Hyuga saw them and welcomed them back, and Kaworu told him to wrap and disinfect Misato’s wounds. He also told Hyuga to make Misato drink one of the vials of his blood in his backpack, to ensure that she didn’t become a lurker.

          Before Hyuga could ask any questions, Kaworu teleported himself back to the basement of Nerv’s Headquarters. There, a furious Mari and concerned Shinji asked him what he was doing.

          “You see, I’m going to—”

          Kaworu passed out cold onto the floor before he was even able to finish his sentence.

          “Great. Just fucking great,” Mari snarled, throwing her hands up in the air.

          Shinji knelt down and rested Kaworu’s face on his lap. He lightly slapped Kaworu’s cheeks to try and revive him, but in vain.

          “This is perfect. We’re stranded in a room of twenty lurkers without our ride, we don’t have any more food and water, I really have to go to the bathroom, and our only sources of information about this stupid place are gone!” Mari yelled, kicking at the ground.

          “Oh my god,” Shinji replied, the gravity of the situation dawning on him.

          “We’re screwed,” Mari said. She sat on the floor and rubbed her forehead.


	16. Truth or Dare is Too Stressful, So Why Don't We All Just Play Truth or Truth?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mari and Shinji play Truth or Truth, the abridged version of Truth or Dare, and Kaworu finds something out about himself that changes everything.

          Mari and Shinji sat on the floor, waiting for Kaworu to wake up. The lurkers inside the cage seemed to have calmed down, but they continued to stare at the two children as if they were pieces of meat.

          “I wonder if Misato is okay,” Shinji said. He had taken his shoes off, because his feet were throbbing from all of the running he had done.

          “She was pretty bloody,” Mari commented, redoing her ponytails.

          Shinji looked down to Kaworu, whose head laid on his lap. He looked awful, and not ready to wake up anytime soon, but he was still breathing.

          “I was serious when I said that I have go to the bathroom. Did you happen to see any bathrooms on this floor?” Mari asked.

          “No, sorry,” Shinji replied.

          Mari groaned.

          “I don’t want to leave you guys,” Mari said. “But…”

          “I’ll be fine,” Shinji said.

          “Well, I just, um… I heard from Asuka that you’re a crappy shot,” Mari said abruptly, with a guilty smile.

          “Well gee, thanks,” Shinji deadpanned, a little offended.

          “Sorry! But, I don’t want to go and have you not able to defend yourself,” Mari said. She rubbed the back of her neck sheepishly.

          “So, you’re worried that I’ll be helpless by myself?” Shinji asked.

          Mari nodded.

          Shinji crossed his fingers under his chin, breathing deeply, trying not to get angry at Mari. He understood that Mari’s intentions were good, and she didn’t intend to insult him. She was speaking the truth. He knew that he was pretty awful with guns.

          “You’re right, Mari,” Shinji said. “I would have trouble defending myself on my own. And, with only me to protect Kaworu, we would be at a huge disadvantage.”

          Mari smiled, and her tense arms relaxed.

          “I’m glad you knew what I meant,” Mari said. “How about this. I’ll just go to the bathroom in the room next to this. If I’m back in a minute, you’ll probably be all right, yeah?”

          “Yeah,” Shinji agreed. Mari stood up, headed out the door, and punched his arm lightly as she went past him.

          Shinji rubbed his arm that smarted a bit, but he couldn’t help smiling.

          Like she promised, Mari returned to the room in just a minute. She put away the gun she had been holding after she closed the door behind her.

          “It’s way too dark out there,” Mari said. “I had no idea what I was peeing on. Hopefully it wasn’t on something important!”

          Mari laughed heartily.

          “Anyway, did Kaworu do anything new?” Mari asked.

          “Well, he shifted a bit to the left, but that’s about it,” Shinji said. He noticed a pile of papers that Mari was about to step onto, and he realized what they were.

          “Mari, stop!” Shinji shouted.

          His warning came too late, as Mari still tripped on the sheets of paper. She made a noise of surprise. However, because of Shinji’s shout, she managed to catch herself on her hands before she got the wind knocked out of her by the floor.

          “What was that?” Mari yelled. She stood back up, and she kicked away some other papers from the floor.

          “They were part of some report I found,” Shinji said. “I dropped them on the floor to put Kaworu on my lap. Now, they’re scattered everywhere…”

          “What did the report say?” Mari said. She tried to see where the papers had flown to by adjusting her eyes more to the darkness, and she saw a strange shape near the cage.

          “It was about something like a virus. It was called, the… uh… Human… Instrumental… Project,” Shinji said, not remembering everything clearly.

          “Instrumental? Isn’t that a type of music?” Mari said.

          Mari walked over to the cage. As she went farther away, she wasn’t visible anymore to Shinji’s eyes.

          “Where are you going, Mari? I can’t see you?” Shinji said, spinning his head around to try and find her.

          “I saw something over here,” Mari said.

          Mari heard the groans from the lurkers grow louder as she walked closer to the object. She slowed her pace, and focused her eyes, and sure enough, the outline of the cage came into view.

          “Mari? What are you doing?” Shinji asked, his voice wavering. “I’m scared. Where are you? Come back here, please.”

          Mari took a deep breath in, lunged for the object, and scuttled away.

          “I think I got something!” Mari smiled. She felt around the object, and she pressed a button on the side of it.

          The flashlight that Misato had found and dropped lit up a small part of the room. Shinji turned towards it, and saw Mari.

          “Boo-yah! I found a flashlight!” Mari exclaimed, grinning with her cat-like smile.

          “Awesome!” Shinji said, unable to believe their luck.

          Now that the space around Shinji was illuminated, he remembered that Kaworu’s nose had been bleeding. Shinji wiped off the blood off Kaworu’s face with his sleeve.

          “I just hope that the batteries don’t run out,” Mari said. “Did we bring any batteries?”

          Shinji reached around for his backpack. Mari shone the light in his bag as he searched through it, but he didn’t find any batteries.

          “Oh well.” Mari shrugged. “That’s nothing much to worry about. Kaworu will wake up soon, and we’ll just have to conserve batteries until then.”

          Mari turned off her flashlight.

          “Until he wakes up, we don’t really have anything to do,” Mari said. She sat down again. “So, let’s talk. Do you wanna play truth or dare?”

          Shinji’s flinched, remembering the times he had been asked to do embarrassing dares while playing that game. Once he was dared by Asuka to go downstairs and, while in front of one of the adults, lick the wall like it was an ice cream cone. All of the kids playing had followed him to the kitchen, where he shocked Misato by doing just that.

          That was weird to explain.

          Asuka hadn’t shut up about that for weeks. As he thought about it, Toji hadn’t as well.

          “I can’t see your face. Are you happy, or not? Do you want to play?” Mari asked.

          “I don’t think we’ll be able to do any fun dares here,” Shinji commented.

          “Oh, yikes. That’s true. We can’t really see anything, and who knows what kind of mold’s been growing in here over the years. Yuck!” Mari said. “Okay, we’ll just play Truth or Truth, then.”

          Shinji still felt like he didn’t want to play the game, but he acquiesced to it.

          They might as well do something in this boredom. Shinji rested his head on his palm, and let the other hand go through Kaworu’s hair.                                               

          “Okay, I’ll start,” Mari said. “Truth or truth?”

          “Do you really need to ask that?” Shinji asked.

          “Absolutely,” Mari said.

          “Okay, truth,” Shinji answered.

          Mari thought for a minute, humming under her breath the entire time.

          “Shinji, who’s the most annoying person out of everyone in the temple group?” Mari asked.

          “Probably Asuka,” Shinji said.

          “Really? I think she’s pretty cool,” Mari said.

          “She likes to tease me,” Shinji said, wrinkling his nose.

          Mari laughed.

          “I think that’s part of her personality,” Mari said. “And, part of her charm.”

          Mari waggled her eyebrows. Shinji frowned, disagreeing.

          “But, I guess if you don’t have thick skin, she could hurt you. She is pretty… blunt,” Mari said. “Now, ask me.”

          “Have you ever fought with Kaworu?” Shinji asked.

          Mari scoffed dramatically, like Shinji had just uttered the most offensive thing he could have said.

          “You didn’t ask me ‘truth or truth!’ Mari shouted.

          “Whoops, I forgot,” Shinji said, lying.

          “Hmm, all right. That’s one strike for you,” Mari said. “My answer is, yeah.”

          “Really?” Shinji said, surprised. “You two seem to be perfect friends. I can’t see you two fighting.”

          ‘Then why did you ask me that question?’ Mari thought, amused.

          “We have been friends since middle school. We both went to a private boarding school, him because he had no family, and me because I’m the daughter of a former high-ranking American politician,” Mari boasted, flipping her hair.

          “Oh, that’s interesting. So, you were the daughter of like, the president or something?” Shinji asked.

          Mari grew silent. Shinji couldn’t tell, but she start to sweat.

          “Umm,” Mari said, her voice shaky. She laughed awkwardly, and looked anywhere but Shinji. “No way! My father wasn’t anyone that influential.”

          “Oh, really?” Shinji said suspiciously. “So, he wasn’t the president?”

          Mari didn’t say anything for a long time.

          “I can neither confirm nor deny anything,” Mari finally replied, her voice robotic, like the sentence was rehearsed. 

          “You don’t have to lie,” Shinji said.

          “I know,” Mari sighed. “What could you do if you knew, anyway? Nothing, he’s on another continent oceans away.”

          “And, he’s probably already dead,” Mari added quietly, her voice a whisper.           

          “I’m sorry for lying. Just, I was taught growing up to not tell anyone I didn’t know that my father was the president. It was for both of our safety. I could have been kidnapped, and used as a hostage, and he could have been targeted because of me,” Mari said.

          “That’s awful,” Shinji replied.

          “I know. But, with power, comes sacrifices,” Mari said. She looked at Kaworu, and she smiled sadly.

          “Take his situation, too. He’s an alien with unfathomable strength and knowledge, but he had to endure hell throughout his first years on Earth,” Mari said. She shivered.

          “I can’t even imagine what he went through.”

          “Me neither,” Shinji agreed.

          “Ah, I guess I never answered your question, did I? We did fight a few times in school, and a few times while we were travelling together after the lurkers came, all over stupid stuff,” Mari said.

          “Stupid stuff like what?” Shinji asked.

          “Like, if one of us was reading a map wrong, or if I fell asleep when I was supposed to be on watch, or when he tried arguing with me about the meaning of some English phrase,” Mari replied, waving her hand.

          “English isn’t his first language, you know. It’s his alien tongue,” Mari said. “I haven’t heard him talk in it that much, and he said that he’s forgotten almost all of the words, so he speaks and thinks mostly in English. But, he does have trouble relating to some human customs and phrases.”

          “What does he have trouble with?” Shinji asked.

          “I can’t think of much now, but he doesn’t understand why we celebrate anniversaries,” Mari said. “He said that his kind lives for thousands of years, and they don’t have a calendar or a way to tell time like we do, so they don’t remember their birthdays or exact dates of things.”

          “He also finds milk really funny,” Mari snorted. “He calls it ‘cow soup.’ I don’t know why, but it always cracks me up whenever he calls it that.”

          “What kind of alien is he?” Shinji asked.

          Mari laid down on the floor to get herself more comfortable. She rested her hands above her head.

          “He said to me once that their name isn’t easily translatable in human language, but the closest equivalent to it is ‘Angels,’ Mari replied.

          “That’s a pretty name,” Shinji said.

          “I think so too,” Mari replied. “Okay, my answering has gone on for too long. Now, it’s my turn to ask a question.”

          “Are you gay?” Mari asked.

          Telling Mari that she had forgotten to ask him “Truth or truth?” was on the tip of Shinji’s tongue, but he held himself back from saying anything.

          “I don’t know,” Shinji said. “I think so?”

          “So, you only like guys?” Mari asked.

          “Ehhh,” Shinji made a noncommittal sound. “I mean, like, most of my crushes have been on other dudes, but once in a while I find a girl I like.”

          “That’s interesting,” Mari said, her eyes widening. “I’ve only been interested in girls my entire life. Is the way you like boys the way you like girls?”

          “Kind of…?” Shinji replied. “It’s a bit different, and most of my crushes on guys last longer than my crushes on girls. Like, my crushes on girls in the beginning are usually really strong, unlike my crushes on dudes, but they fade out easier. They’re like a firework, and with guys, it’s like a slow burn. I don’t know. It’s hard to explain how I feel.”

          “Wow,” Mari said.

          “I didn’t know human sexuality was so complex,” Kaworu commented from on Shinji’s lap. Both Mari and Shinji jumped.

          “Kaworu!” Shinji cried, smothering his boyfriend in his arms.

          “Have you been awake the entire time, you ass?” Mari asked, blushing.

          Kaworu giggled.

          “No,” Kaworu answered. He coughed. “I woke up only a minute ago.”

          “Oh, really?” Mari play-sneered.

          Kaworu made a weird, challenging yet smug, face at Mari. She seemed to take that as a suitable answer.

          “Close your eyes,” Kaworu said.

          Kaworu lit up the room.

          “Are you okay, Kaworu?” Shinji asked.

          “Yeah, I think so. I overused my powers, but now that I’ve rested, I should be fine,” Kaworu replied.

          Kaworu leaned up to kiss Shinji. When he pulled away, he noticed red stains on Shinji’s lip, and he blushed and swore.

          “Sorry, I got some of my nosebleed onto you,” Kaworu apologized. He raised his arm to wipe off Shinji’s lip with his sleeve, but when he saw his bare arm, he remembered that he was shirtless.

          Kaworu glared at the lurker that had taken his shirt.

          “I can wipe it off,” Shinji said. He used his jacket sleeve and a bit of saliva to clean off his face.

          Kaworu felt dejected for a second, but he recovered.

          Shinji took the chance to fully wipe off the nosebleed traces off Kaworu’s face. Kaworu smiled, and he felt joy at being loved as Shinji wiped off his face. They held each other’s gaze for a long, serene moment.

          “Can you tell us what happened?” Shinji asked Kaworu. “To you, and Misato?”

          “Of course. We found this cage at about the same time,” Kaworu relayed. He gestured at the trapped lurkers.

          “I bumped into the cage with my nose in the dark. That’s how I got my nosebleed.”

          “You were in the dark? Why didn’t you light up the room?” Mari asked in a taunting voice.

          “I just, uh. Forgot,” Kaworu said defensively.

          Mari rolled her eyes.

          “The one with my shirt used to be Misato’s boyfriend. She tried to go up and touch him, but he ended up… eating some of her fingers,” Kaworu said.

          “Holy shit,” Mari said, covering her hand with her mouth.

          Shinji was pale, and he gulped.

          “I sent her back to the temple, and gave her to Hyuga, so she could get treated,” Kaworu said.

          “Will she become a lurker?” Shinji asked.

“No, not if Hyuga succeeds in giving her some of my blood as an antibody,” Kaworu said. “In any case, we should keep exploring this place. I’m curious to why there’s Nerv personnel caged up here, almost if as on purpose. I’m sure you two are curious as well.”

          Kaworu stood up, sadly leaving Shinji’s warm lap. He stepped onto a paper. He glanced at it, and froze. He picked up the paper.

          “Oh, are you looking at the report I found?” Shinji asked. “I read some of it. It told of a virus and something named Tabios-or-other. It was pretty strange stuff.”

          “Tabris, you mean?” Kaworu asked, looking at Shinji with a pained expression.

          “Yeah! Tabris!” Shinji said. “What kind of name is that, I wonder? It doesn’t sound Japanese.”

          “Or, English,” Mari mused. A lightbulb lit up in her head, and she stared at Kaworu, who was furiously reading through the paper.

          “Kaworu, do _you_ know where that name is from?” Mari asked.

          “Yes. It means ‘one of free will,’ in my native language,” Kaworu smiled. “It’s my name.”

          Both humans took a minute to digest that information.

          “So, the Tabris in the report that they were talking about was you, er… Tabris?” Shinji asked.

          “That's correct. But, please don’t call me Tabris. Kaworu is the name I chose for myself. The name Tabris brings back too many awful memories,” Kaworu said.

          “They used to take my blood all the time, and I wondered why. This report might explain everything,” Kaworu said to himself.

          Kaworu finished reading the page, and he looked all around for the next page in the giant mess of papers strewn everywhere.

          “Can you guys help me reorder these? I want to know what this says,” Kaworu asked.

          Mari and Shinji diligently helped him gather all the papers and put them in order. The entire report was over eighty pages, with the words in an extremely tiny font. The process took them nearly half an hour.

          The three of them crowded together. Only Kaworu, with his alien language translator ability, was able to fully understand the report, which used complicated Japanese phrases, kanji, and scientific jargon. He summarized each page for Shinji and Mari, who both eventually stopped trying to read the report, because it was just too difficult to read, and much easier to hear the abridged version of it. Kaworu also put in his own opinions while

          “They wanted to wipe out mankind and rule the last remaining survivors, blah blah blah, making a blank slate to make them kings of the world, blah,” Kaworu recited. “How idiotic!”

          “What were they, anime villains?” Mari scoffed. “If they recite their motto one more time in this dumb report, I’m going to scream.”

          “What? Oh, you mean, the one that goes, “God’s in his heaven—”

          Mari placed her hands on Kaworu’s mouth to get him to stop speaking. He licked her hand, and she recoiled.

          “Gross!” Mari yelled.

          Kaworu smirked.

          “Keep reading,” Shinji said.

          “Okay, okay. Basically, these pages say that they wanted to make a paradise, a “heaven on Earth”, and rule it. They created the virus, and tested it on their members first, to turn them into lurkers,” Kaworu said.

          “That’s fucked up!” Mari swore. “So, they’re the reason that the entire world has become infected?!”

          “I can’t believe it,” Shinji whispered, leaning on Kaworu’s arm.

          “I’m going to read how they made the virus. If there’s luck, they also made an antidote…” Kaworu trailed off.

          Kaworu skimmed the next sections of the report. His disgusted expression shifted into horror.

          “The virus was made of substances unknown to mankind. They were injected into the bloodstream of humans, from the blood of… Tab… ris,” Kaworu read. “Wait.”

          Kaworu read the rest of that page. And, the page after that. And, the page after that one.

          “I, oh god. What did I do?” Kaworu said, his voice raw with emotion. The page crunched in his fingers, and he threw the paper onto the ground. He covered his face with his hands.

          “Kaworu?! What’s wrong?” Shinji asked.

          “It’s all my fault,” Kaworu answered. “Everything’s my fault.”

          “What’s all your fault?” Mari asked. She picked up the paper he had thrown, and tried to read it to understand why he was freaking out, but she wasn’t able to read anything except the occasional word.

          “I ran away, and I screwed up everything,” Kaworu said, his voice hushed.

          “Kaworu, please tell us what you read,” Mari said. Her hands shook on the paper.

          “You’re scaring me, Kaworu,” Shinji said, tears welling up in his eyes.

          Kaworu grabbed the next set of pages. He blinked, and steeled himself.

          “I won’t know all of the details until I’m done reading this report, but I’m a hundred percent sure of one thing,” Kaworu said.

          “I caused the apocalypse.”


	17. They Were Going to Kill Me Anyway

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some disturbing secrets about Nerv are revealed by Kaworu.

          “Um, what do you mean, ‘I caused the apocalypse?’” Mari asked.

          Kaworu threw the entire report onto the ground. The papers flew everywhere, and Mari sputtered in protest.

          “What the fuck, Kaworu! We only just picked those up!” Mari yelled.

          “I don’t care!” Kaworu shouted back. “Nothing else of that report matters. I’ve read everything I need to know.”

          Overwhelmed by their sudden yelling, Shinji felt tears prickle at his eyes. 

          “I doubt it,” Mari said under her breath. She scowled and started gathering up the papers again.

          “Can’t you just explain to us what you read?” Shinji asked. He sniffed, and started wiping off his tears with his sleeve.

          “Were you crying because of me, Shinji?” Kaworu asked, his expression horrified. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to act that harshly.”

          “You really were scary,” Mari commented, picking up a paper of the report.

          “Oh god,” Kaworu said. “I really was? I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to be.”

          Shinji chuckled quietly.

          “I hadn’t realized it until Mari said that, but it’s true. You’ve been a totally different person many times today. You’ve scared me so much,” Shinji smiled, his voice bitter. “We should never have come here. I don’t know what’s happening to you, but I hate it.”

          Kaworu walked over, wanting to hug Shinji. Shinji brushed him off. Shinji turned away and took a step back, and Kaworu flinched.                                                     

          Kaworu crossed his arms.

          “I guess I should explain,” Kaworu said. He sat down onto a crate near to where they were standing.

           “It was an accident, a simple mutation, but the scientists here managed to make the virus that turns people into lurkers. I read that they found if they mutated components of my blood’s red blood cells and antibodies, they became aggressive, and my cells began to attack everything around them, including normal human cells. They attacked other cells until they were spongy, heavy, and useless,” Kaworu explained.

          “The scientists decided to test how my blood affected living animals. They injected my blood into the bodies of rats. The rat’s brains swelled and became full of holes, and they started eating their own kind. They tried to get the rats to eat rat food, or even cheeses and candies, but the rats refused to attack anything other than their own kind. They became solely cannibalistic,” Kaworu said.

          “That’s horrible,” Mari said, picking up another sheet of paper. “My kindergarten class had a pet rat.”

          “A pet rat?” Shinji asked, looking up from glaring at the floor.

          “Yeah. His name was Sparky,” Mari said. “He liked eating mozzarella.”

          “That’s so cool…” Shinji replied, smiling. He motioned for Kaworu to continue, and then turned his gaze back onto the concrete ground to keep not looking at Kaworu.

          Kaworu coughed.

          “The scientists thought of a _brilliant_ plan: to try infecting humans with the virus,” Kaworu continued, rolling his eyes. “Needless to say, that was a disaster.” Kaworu gestured at the lurkers in the cage.

          “However, the higher-ups of Nerv figured that they could use the new virus to their advantage. They thought of unleashing the virus onto the rest of humanity. They wanted to control the survivors of the virus, or, at least, threaten to use it against enemy countries, as a biological weapon of untold destruction—”

          “Wait, that’s dumb," Mari injected. "Wouldn’t they run the risk of the virus spreading to everyone, and not just the people they wanted to infect? Isn’t that kind of a stupid plan? And, like, what if they got the virus themselves?”

          “That’s true. The virus is dangerous to anybody nearby. And, because no human has ever been exposed to it, and nobody’s been able to build immunity against it, it would be fatal, no matter the case,” Kaworu replied. “That’s why they were in the process of making an antidote.”

          “An antidote?” Shinji asked, his head lifting slightly.

          “Yes, of my blood,” Kaworu answered. “As you’ve seen with Asuka, my blood can reverse the effects of the virus.”

          “Then, why didn’t your blood work on people that’ve turned into lurkers?” Mari asked. “We met a man once that was on the edge of turning, and we gave him a dose of Kaworu’s blood, but it did nothing. He turned anyway.”

          “Yes, we’ve seen that my blood has been able to cure infected people to an extent. I theorize that people that are too far-gone need much more blood to revert back to normal. Maybe higher concentrations of my blood would cure full-blown lurkers,” Kaworu mused.

          “Wait, so you don’t know how the antidote would have worked?” Mari asked.

          “Oh, yeah. I didn’t read that far,” Kaworu said.

          Mari halted half-way in her process to pick up another sheet of the report. She stomped her foot and angrily bunched up the paper and threw it at Kaworu’s face.

          “Ow!”

          Kaworu rubbed his cheek.

          “You idiot,” Mari replied, picking up the balled-up paper and flattening it. She added it to her stack of papers.

          “Yeah, I messed up. I'll admit to that. Sorry, sorry,” Kaworu grinned. He bent down to help Mari to pick up the report again, and Shinji joined them after a second. They pulled together the papers again. Kaworu hurriedly read through the last twenty-or-so pages, finishing off the report.

          “That’s interesting,” Kaworu murmured. “So, the antidote would have unique binding proteins in it that would attach to my regular white blood cells and tell them to specifically destroy the virus and its infected cells.”

          “Hey, maybe they finished making some of the antidote here. Why don’t we look around?” Mari said.

          “No, it wouldn’t be of any use,” Kaworu said. He frowned and bit his lip. “They weren’t able to make the antidote, and so the people they infected, both purposely and accidentally, weren’t able to get turned back.”

          “They infected people on purpose? Is that why the cage is here?” Shinji asked, his mouth open in shock. “They locked up their own people and tested the virus on them?!”

          Kaworu nodded.

          “That’s what I think,” Kaworu said. “Or, maybe only a few of were supposed to be infected, so that they could cure them once the experiment was done, but somehow the virus eventually spread to everyone. It doesn’t matter, anyway.”

          “Wait, wouldn’t they have eaten someone if that had happened? There would be blood everywhere, and not just lurkers,” Mari countered.

          “Huh, that’s right,” Kaworu said. He rubbed his chin. “If the virus was able to transport through the air, that might have been a different story, but yeah… they must have decided they needed more than a few test subjects.”

          “So, the virus isn’t airborne?” Mari asked.

          “Yeah. Luckily for humanity, it can only be transferred by biting, so lurkers have to be really close to infect someone,” Kaworu said.

          “How was the antidote supposed to work? Maybe we can make some of our own!” Shinji smiled.

          “It was supposed to be injected, unlike what I’ve been doing. I’ve giving people my antibodies orally,” Kaworu explained. “The antidote is actually rather simple to make. You just need my blood and a strengthening agent. Although, I read that Nerv was planning to make buying it super expensive. They wanted to ask for millions of dollars from the richest people and countries, and absolute surrender and obeying once they took control of the world. I wonder what would have happen if the antidote had been made…?”

           “That’s so messed up,” Mari said, gulping. “Who were these people?”

          Kaworu shrugged.

          “Monsters,” he replied. "That's the only word I can describe them as."

          “Kaworu, you haven't told us why the antidote wasn’t made. Did all of the scientists die?” Shinji asked.

          “No, it’s not that. I ran away,” Kaworu answered, his face falling. “I ran away, and so they weren’t able to make any antidote, and they—they couldn’t turn back their subjects, and somehow the virus went through their company and the lurkers made it outside, and, and…”

          Kaworu started to shake and hyperventilate. Mari and Shinji rushed forward to help him, and Shinji patted his back.

          “Breathe, breathe,” Mari said. Shinji counted to ten, and Kaworu breathed in and out.

          “I caused everything. They couldn’t cure anyone. Not anyone. After I left, they were doomed, and billions of people have become lurkers because I ran away, and nobody had the antidote. It’s all my fault…” Kaworu trailed off. He began to cry, and he chewed again on his lip until a drop of blood swelled up.

          “It’s not your fault,” Mari assured him. “You couldn’t predict the future.”

          “Yeah, how could you have known that?” Shinji agreed, wiping off Kaworu’s cheek. “You needed to leave for your own safety.”

          Kaworu smiled unexpectedly.

          “That’s true. In the last pages of their report, they told of how they would artificially recreate my blood. And after they were done, they had plans to hide me underground and kill me, to make sure that I couldn’t go rouge, and interfere with their plans. They kept me locked up because they thought I would kill them, haha,” Kaworu explained.

          “But, you’re an alien!” Mari yelled. “You’re a being that people can’t even imagine exist! Why would they kill you?”

          “If you can do such magical things, you could have really changed humanity. You could have taught us how to teleport, or made beautiful attractions like your aquarium room,” Shinji said. “Why didn’t they see that?”

          “I don’t know,” Kaworu frowned.

          “I think that I really was disposable to them. They didn’t think of me as an asset, like you guys do,” Kaworu said. He grinned, and the other two returned his smile.

          “Maybe I was just found by the wrong people," Kaworu said, looking at the two with fondness in his eyes.

          Mari snorted.

          "It's too bad that Nerv didn't get to know you as well as we have," Shinji said. 

          "I agree. They just considered me a waste of food and care,” Kaworu sighed.

          “To be honest, reading that they were going to kill me didn't surprise me," Kaworu revealed. "I knew that they were planning to just get rid of me long before they made the virus; I could see it in their faces. Even though they tried to hide it, they were scared of me."

          Kaworu, even though he looked like he was internally fighting with himself, continued speaking:

          “Sometimes I dreamt about the day when I would finally resist and kill them all. I really wanted to, some days.”

          Kaworu’s eyes burned.

          Mari and Shinji glanced at each other, speechless.

          A fleeting feeling of fear went through Shinji, but he repressed it.

          ‘That doesn’t seem the Kaworu I know,’ Shinji thought. ‘I couldn’t see him killing anyone.’

          After finishing his thought, Kaworu smiled, like he had just read his thoughts. Shinji jumped.

          “But, I couldn’t. It felt wrong hurting a human,” Kaworu said, relaxing his tense posture.

          “It’s good that you never did,” Mari said, lightly hitting Kaworu’s shoulder. “They could have killed you. But, you survived.”

          Kaworu took a shaky breath in and nodded. The dark air around them cleared.

          “Oh, I just remembered something. Um… Kaworu, this is a weird question, but do you remember a blond woman that took care of you? With kinda short hair, and a mole under her eye?” Shinji asked.

          Kaworu cocked his head to the side, thinking.

          Yes. Doctor Akagi Ritsuko,” Kaworu recited. “She wasn’t very nice… Why, did you know her?”

          “Oh. Yeah,” Shinji replied, rubbing his arm. “She took care of me for a while. With her girlfriend too, Maya.”

          “Miss Maya! Oh, I remember her!” Kaworu grinned. He leaned back onto the wall, remembering his past. “How nostalgic thinking about her makes me… I’d nearly forgotten about her.”

          “Did you know Maya, too?” Shinji asked, his eyes sparkling.

          “Yeah, I did. I didn’t see her often, but she really was the nicest person to me. She made me laugh many times,” Kaworu sighed. “She also brought me desserts when I was good.”

          “You do have a sweet tooth,” Mari commented. “What did you eat? I bet it was cake… maybe pudding… or even pie…?”

          Kaworu moaned.

          “Don’t tease me like that, Mari. You’re making me drool,” Kaworu reprimanded.

          Shinji laughed, and Mari ended up joining him.


	18. Mari Gets Really Wet ;)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shinji, Kaworu, and Mari make it back to the temple. It starts raining again, and a few of the girls get soaked.

          The three kids gathered their breath.

          “Are we going to gather any more files? I don’t want any of these reports to go to waste,” Mari said.

          “We could, but I think we’ve overstayed this trip,” Shinji said. “Plus, I’m worried about how Misato is doing.”

          “So, we’re going to head back? Are you up for it, Kaworu?” Mari asked.

          “Yeah, I should be fine,” Kaworu replied. “Let’s go back.”

          Kaworu held hands with Shinji and Mari, and they teleported back to the entrance of the temple. It was late at night, and the stars shone above their heads. Shinji smelled a pungent scent. He stepped forward, and the ground sunk slightly beneath his foot.

          “Did it rain?” Shinji asked, extending his hand to try and catch any raindrops. A few bounced off his fingers.

          “It seems to be sprinkling right now,” Kaworu said, sniffing and crinkling his nose.

          The rain intensified overhead into a deafening pour.

          “It smells like something died,” Mari added.

          “Everywhere smells like something died,” Shinji deadpanned.

          “Because of the lurkers?” Kaworu asked.

          Something whizzed by Shinji’s ear before he had the chance to voice his sarcastic reply.

          “What was that?” Shinji asked.

          Kaworu heard an object hit the ground next to him.

          “Huh. That didn’t sound like rain,” Kaworu said.

          “Good grief, is somebody shooting at us?” Mari asked.

          They all looked overhead.

          “HEY, WHOEVER YOU ARE, WE’RE NOT LURKERS!!” Mari yelled, waving her hands.

          They heard distant mumbling overhead, and a flashlight lit up on top of the temple. The light beam was redirected, landing in their eyes.

          “Ow!” Mari and Shinji exclaimed. Kaworu winced.

          “Who is there?” Hyuga called down.

          “Hyuga, you idiot!” Mari yelled. “You nearly shot us!”

          “What?” Hyuga yelled.

          “YOU ARE AN IDIOT AND YOU NEARLY SHOT US!!” Mari screamed, making a microphone with her hands.

          “What?” Hyuga yelled down again.

          “Don’t be so loud! You’re going to attract lurkers,” Shinji reprimanded.

          “It doesn’t matter. Nobody can hear anything in this damn rain,” Kaworu said. “Let’s just get inside. I’m feeling a bit woozy.”

          The three kids went through the temple door. Shinji bumped harshly into Hyuga, who was sprinting his way down. Shinji grunted in pain.

          “Whoa, thank god you guys are back!” Hyuga said, grinning. He took off his glasses and wiped the raindrops off the lenses with his sweatshirt.

          “Did you guys see what happened to the people outside?” Hyuga asked, huffing on his glasses.

          “We _were_ the people outside!” Mari yelled.

          “Oh god,” Hyuga exclaimed, horrified. “I’m so sorry. I saw there were things moving, but I wasn’t able to recognize you guys.”

          Hyuga led them inside, apologizing profusely.

          “How is Misato doing?” Shinji asked.

          “Well, at first I didn’t know what to do when Kaworu and Misato suddenly appeared in front of me. Both of them were all bloody, and Kaworu kind of just shoved Misato at me, told me to give her bandages and a vial in his backpack, and left. He didn’t really explain anything,” Hyuga said.

          “Did Misato tell you what happened?” Mari asked.

          “No, she wasn’t able to say anything for a few solid minutes. I think it was because of the shock,” Hyuga answered. “I tried wrapping up her fingers with bandages, but she screamed and wouldn’t let me touch them.”

          “Oh god…” Mari said.

          “I was able to calm her down by giving her water and letting her wrap her own fingers,” Hyuga said. “It still took about an hour before she was able to speak, though.”

          “Can we see her?” Shinji asked.

          “Of course. She’s resting in the girl’s bedroom,” Hyuga replied.

          “Sounds good. Come on, Kaworu,” Mari said. She looked behind her, to where Kaworu had been walking. The hallway was empty.

          “Um… where did Kaworu go?” Mari asked, her eyes shifting back and forth.

          Shinji and Hyuga whipped around to look.

          “I have no idea...” Shinji said.

          “I’m going to go retrace our steps. Maybe he fell down or something,” Mari said. “You guys go ahead.”

          Mari waved at them as she began running back into the darkness.

          Shinji swallowed, fear making his body sweat.

          “Well, let’s keep going,” Hyuga said.

          Shinji and Hyuga walked to the girl’s room and opened the door slowly. Hyuga’s pointed his flashlight at the ground, where they saw Misato sleeping on the floor. Hyuga knelt down on the floor and shook Misato awake.

          “Huh? Whozzat?” Misato slurred, blinking and sitting up. She took one look at Shinji, and her eyes widened. She leapt at Shinji, hugging his legs.

          “Shinji! You’re safe! Thank god!” Misato yelled.

          “Shut up, you’re too loud,” Asuka muttered half-asleep, her voice heavy with lethargy.

          Shinji, feeling awkward with Misato holding his legs like a koala, patted her head. He noticed the holes in her grip made by having three less fingers, and he shuddered.

          “Yeah, Misato, I’m fine,” Shinji said weakly. “You’re the one I’m more worried about.”

          “Me?” Misato asked. She followed his gaze, and she stole back her hand and cradled it to her chest. Her cheeks flushed hotly.

          “Don’t stare at my fingers like that,” Misato said.

          “I’m sorry,” Shinji apologized.

          “I’m not crippled,” Misato whispered to herself, tears welling in her eyes.

          “I didn’t say you were,” Shinji said, quieting his voice to match hers. He sat down, and Misato sniffed.

          “I’m so sorry that our trip to Nerv wasn’t a better one,” Misato said. Tears fell down her cheeks. “I used to love working there. It was my dream job, with the best coworkers and friends I’d ever made.”

          Misato smiled over Shinji’s shoulder at Hyuga, who was leaning on the doorway. He straightened and cleared his voice, nodding.

          Asuka grunted and shifted, her clothes rustling loudly in the silent room. Hikari blinked awake as the body next to hers moved, and she forced herself to stay awake when she saw the flashlight illuminating the room.

          “Shinji?” Hikari asked. “Is that really you?”

          “Yes, it’s me,” Shinji smiled.

          “I’m so glad! We all thought you guys were dead!” Hikari exclaimed, sitting up straight. “Didn’t we, Asuka?”

          “Yep, all dead and gone,” Asuka muttered. “Eaten by lurkers somewhere else. Dead, and not being able to come back and bother us when we were trying to _sleep_!”

          “Asuka, don’t be so mean,” Hikari admonished. “We don’t know what they’ve been through.”

          “It must’ve not been hard. Everyone survived, didn’t they?” Asuka said, letting out a laugh. She got up and glared at Shinji, Hyuga, and Mari.

          “Unless, I spoke too soon. What, did you lose Kaworu and that Mami chick?” Asuka quipped.

          “No, Mari is fine,” Shinji countered, huffing.

          “How about your boyfriend, then? He’s not dead, is he?” Asuka smirked.

          “Asuka!” Hikari yelled.

          “Hikari!” Asuka yelled back, copying her girlfriend’s annoyed voice. She chanced a glare at Hikari, who returned it twice-fold.

          “Sweetie, don’t give me that tone,” Hikari said darkly, her eyes glazing over. “Your bullshit tonight is not sitting well with me. Misato just lost her fingers, and I know you were scared of anyone else coming back injured—or even dead. Don’t give me that crap.”

          Asuka held up her hands, paling.

          “I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” Asuka apologized. “I didn’t mean to go that far.”

          “No, you didn’t. You knew as well as the rest of us that if we had to bury anyone, we all would be shattered,” Hikari said. “We’ve already lost Rei, and I know that the group still doesn’t feel as together as it used to.”

          “That’s because the damn museum had to burn down!” Asuka scoffed. “Back when we had a good shelter, lots of food, and a schedule to follow, it almost seemed normal! Now, we’re barely surviving here. Nobody knows what the fuck to do.”

          Hikari rubbed Asuka’s hand.

          “I know,” Hikari replied.

          “Wait, where’s Sakura? Is she next to you guys?” Misato asked.

          Hikari looked next to her at the usually-occupied space.

          “No, I don’t see her. Maybe she can’t sleep?” Hikari guessed.

          “I heard her get up a few hours ago,” Asuka said.

          “Do you know where she is?” Misato asked Hyuga.

          “No idea,” Hyuga replied. He unhooked the walkie-talkie on his belt and asked if Aoba was with her.

          “No, I’ve been sleeping for the past hour,” Aoba said. “She hasn’t come into the boy’s bedroom.”

          “What?! Why aren’t you keeping watch?” Hyuga yelled.

          “Aren’t you supposed to be on watch duty?” Aoba yawned. “Plus, you were the one who told me to ‘get some shut-eye,’ weren’t you?”

          Hyuga coughed after a second.

          “Yes, I do now remember saying that. Can you get up and help me try to find her?” Hyuga asked.

          “What? I was just having a nice dream,” Aoba complained. “Fine, I’ll get up. Over and out.”

          “I’m going to go try and find her. She’s probably fallen asleep in the dining room after getting a midnight snack,” Hyuga said.

          “I’m still worried about her,” Hikari said. “She hasn’t seemed like herself since… well, since she saw Misato.”

          “All the blood really got to her,” Asuka commented. “Even I was grossed out by seeing Misato’s bloody finger stumps, still oozing out blood—”

          Hikari punched Asuka’s arm.

          “Ow, hey!” Asuka said.

          “You’re gonna make us all barf,” Hikari said.

          Hyuga rolled his eyes and headed out the door.

          “Did it really shock Sakura, seeing you hurt?” Shinji asked Misato.

          “Yeah, I believe so. After I screamed, everyone else came over. It really scared Sakura, seeing me. She’s just a child, so…” Misato trailed off. She rubbed her hand.

          “We were all eating dinner, too,” Asuka said. “She was still eating some mochi filled with dark red bean paste. I saw her nearly throw up.”

          “Did she really?” Misato asked, covering her hand with her mouth in horror.

          “That’s awful! I’m so sorry we ruined your meal,” Shinji added.

          “It’s not your fault, nobody knew what was going to happen,” Hikari said, slouching against Asuka. She yawned, starting a chain of yawning to spread around the room’s occupants.

          “I’m going to go back to bed. Wake us up when you find Sakura,” Asuka mumbled, setting herself back down onto the floor.

          Shinji bid them all good-night, and he left the women to get more rest.

\------

          Sakura was holding on the roof for dear life. She whimpered, looking down at the ground below. Her legs trembled, and thoughts of slipping and dying permeated through her brain.

          She had climbed up to get away from everyone, but especially Misato. Even after Misato’s ugly hand had been covered up by those bandages, the image of her bloody hand would attack her mind whenever she saw Misato, and she didn’t want to explain to anyone why she was flinching like she was. The thought was too embarrassing.

          For the first few minutes on top of the roof, where her little feet kept her balance fine on the thin wooden beams, she was fine. She was finally able to breathe and think, and she ate the cookie she stashed in her pocket for a snack later.

          The rain came as a total surprise. It had gotten dark, but she had assumed that it was just becoming night. However, rain began pelting down, and she knew that she wouldn’t be able to climb down like she thought she would. Even when a few people came out of nowhere and loitered in front of the temple, she was so scared that she wasn’t able to call out to them. She tried throwing down one of the rocks in her coat, but the people gave their attention to Hyuga, who was standing a few feet below her, on the porch of the top floor.

          Sakura saw Hyuga line up a shot with his gun and fail to hit the people, probably because of his useless, watery glasses. Sakura cried out to Hyuga, but he didn’t hear her, and he headed back inside. Her stomach dropped.

          “Am I going to be stuck up here all night?” Sakura moaned, wrapping her arms tighter above the roof’s highest edge.

          Someone suddenly appeared next to her, and Sakura jumped. One of her feet slipped, but she righted herself onto the slope she was standing on.

          “Who’s there?” Sakura yelled. She looked at where the person had been, and saw a white-haired boy lying face-down on the roof’s tiles.

          “Kaworu?” Sakura asked. She poked the boy with the tip of her pink sneaker.

          “Is he dead?” Sakura wondered aloud. “I hope not…”

          Kaworu stirred after another few pokes by her foot, and he stood up, his face incredibly somehow whiter than the usual uncooked marshmallow color he usually had.

          “Where am I?” Kaworu said, his voice hoarse. He rubbed his temples.

          “I have the worst migraine ever,” Kaworu moaned. He turned his head to see a soaked-wet Sakura staring at him incredulously, like he was an alien, or something.

          Oh yeah. He was.

          “What are you doing up here, Sakura?” Kaworu asked.

          “That’s what I want to ask you,” Sakura countered. “How did you get up here? I climbed, but you just seemed to poof out of nowhere.”

          “Yeah, I know. I think I was going to transport myself into the temple before I passed out, to make sure I wasn’t outside with lurkers around, but I ended up coming up here,” Kaworu explained. “Huh. I wonder if maybe imagining a pillow in my head would have made a successful teleportation into a bedroom. I’ll have to try that next time.”

          “Uh-huh,” Sakura agreed. She shivered, the chill of the cold rain setting into her lithe body.

          “You look awful,” Kaworu commented. “Your clothes are ruined because of the rain.”

          “You look awful, too,” Sakura said, sticking out her tongue. “Wait, is my hair all-right?”

          Kaworu shook his head.

          “Ugh! I spent a long time brushing it and making a ponytail exactly like Asuka’s, and now it’s ruined!” Sakura whined. She checked her hair with one of her hands, and when she couldn’t find her ponytail, she hit her head into the roof in frustration.

          “And now, my froggie ponytail is gone,” Sakura said, her voice angry.

          “What did it look like?” Kaworu asked.

          “It was purple with a smiling green frog on it,” Sakura answered. “Can you get me down from the roof? I wanna get into my pajamas.”

          “Sure thing,” Kaworu said. He teleported them onto the ground, and Sakura dropped her hands and massaged her sore legs, which had been standing in the same position for over an hour.

          “I think I can find your ponytail,” Kaworu said. “It probably fell off your hair just a little while ago, so it has to be somewhere around the edge of the temple. I’ll light up the ground so we can find it.”

          “You’re gonna be like… my flashlight?” Sakura asked, her eyes full of wonder.

          Kaworu chuckled.

          “Something like that,” he replied.

          Kaworu shone his light towards the ground, and they walked together around the perimeter of the temple.

          “I see it!” Sakura exclaimed, diving towards the ground and getting her shorts muddy. Her ponytail lay in front of where she climbed up.

          “Maybe you snagged it on a brick or something,” Kaworu mused.

          “Maybe,” Sakura replied, humming happily and re-fixing her ponytail.

          “How does it look?” Sakura asked, spinning around to display her hair for Kaworu. “I don’t have a mirror or Asuka to fix it, but it looks fine, right?”

          A few stray strands of hair lay outside the ponytail, which dipped near Sakura’s ear, lower than she usually had it.

          “It looks great,” Kaworu replied.

          Sakura smiled.

          Kaworu heard suspicious moaning behind him, but he didn’t want to alarm Sakura. Instead, he calmly led Sakura back inside, where she thanked him for getting her down and finding her ponytail.

          Kaworu stayed outside. Once Sakura was out of sight, he turned around.

          A herd of six to eight lurkers was coming towards him. They were over twenty feet away, but he was still wary. He had to defeat them all, lest they barge into the temple and hurt anyone, but especially Shinji or Mari.

          Speaking of Mari, he thought he saw a shadow like her’s running towards the lurkers, but that couldn’t be possible, right?

          Kaworu focused his light towards the figure, and he gaped. It was Mari, armed with nothing but a knife, sprinting towards the group of lurkers. She was right in front of them.

          Despite his throbbing head and his exhaustion, Kaworu teleported again, landing right by Mari.

          “Kaworu! That’s where you are!” Mari gasped.

          “Mari, what the hell are you doing? There are too many of them, let me kill… them… a…”

          Kaworu didn’t finish his sentence. He flopped onto the ground again, all of his energy gone.

          “Kaworu?!” Mari yelled. She looked at the advancing lurkers, and she knew that she had only a few seconds to decide how she was going to kill them all while protecting Kaworu.

          “It’s go time,” Mari grinned.

          Mari first dragged Kaworu a few feet away from the lurkers, to give herself more space to swing her knife.

          With adrenaline pumping through her veins, and her hand twitching to kill something, Mari let out a battle cry and lunged forward. Her knife slashed across a lurker’s face. Mari laughed at the pleasant feeling of feeling lurker skin tear. She swung her knife upwards and outwards, cutting through the lurker’s skull with intense force.

          “One down,” Mari said, revving herself.

          Mari plunged her knife into another lurker’s head, and swiftly took out her knife before the lurker to the right of her grabbed her arm. She doubled backwards, and ended up kicking Kaworu’s shoulder.

          “Damn, we’re too close again,” Mari said. She dragged Kaworu even further away, breathing heavily.

          “God, you’re a heavy bitch,” Mari swore. She dropped Kaworu on the ground and fought the urge to catch her breath, knowing they were approaching the temple.

          Mari ripped through another lurker’s skull with her knife. She punched a lurker that came for her neck, and its teeth came dangerously close to puncturing her skin.

          “Scary, scary!” Mari said, wiping the blood off her knife onto her pants.

          Mari severed another lurker’s brain with a precise cut, and she pushed the lurker next to her down to the ground with her boot. She crushed its head like it was a pumpkin.

“Two lurkers left,” Mari said, breathing heavily. Her leg started cramping, and she swore due to the pain.

          Mari glanced back at Kaworu’s lifeless body.

          “You owe me so much for this later,” Mari said. She faced forward again. “I want you to make me a spa, and create a hot masseuse to massage my back.”

          Mari ripped through one lurker’s brain with her knife, but it snagged on the lurker’s skull bone and bended to one side. Mari still managed to subdue that lurker, but it broke her knife in two.

          “Damn, that was my lucky knife,” Mari said, her brows furrowing. She dug a hole with her foot and threw her knife into the hole, covering it with dirt.

          “You will be missed,” Mari said, bowing her head in gratitude.

          Mari’s head snapped up after a minute.

          “Wait, there was one more lurker,” Mari said. She turned back around, and jumped when she saw the lurker was having a feast of Kaworu’s arm.

          “NO!” Mari screamed. She punched the lurker and body slammed it to get it off of Kaworu, but it stood up after a second. She heard the sound of the lurker chewing flesh, and Mari tried not to cry.

          “You bastard… you’ve hurt him!” Mari yelled. She looked frantically around her to try and find a weapon, because she knew she couldn’t pierce through a lurker’s skull with just her fists.

          “What should I do… what should I do…?” Mari said, panicking. The lurker was advancing towards her again, and Kaworu was bleeding furiously out of the chunk bitten out of his arm.

          Suddenly, the lurker’s body started spasming. Mari thought it was a trick of the darkness, but the lurker collapsed onto the ground and didn’t move again.

          Mari fell to her knees and kicked the lurker’s head. The lurker didn’t twitch. She even held her finger in front of the lurker’s mouth, but it didn’t jump out and bite her.

          “What the fuck?” Mari asked.

          Mari picked up Kaworu by his armpits, and dragged him back to the temple. She left the lurker behind. If it woke up and followed her, then at least it could be easily killed by someone else. She was done with physical exercise for today.

          Or, maybe for the next few weeks.

          Mari dropped Kaworu on the foot of the temple. She ran inside and found Hyuga and Aoba. They helped her carry Kaworu inside, and they laid him down and ripped up the stored blankets to make lots of bandages for his gaping wound.

          Mari fell asleep after Kaworu’s arm was bandaged. Hyuga carried her to the women’s bedroom, where the rest of the women laid sleeping. Hyuga laid the sopping-wet Mari next to Hikari, who was also sleeping under a blanket to get herself dry.


	19. Oh God, What Have We Done?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mari realizes something that shakes her to her core. Kaworu apologizes to Sakura, and someone new is found.

          Misato was called up at the regular early morning wake-up call for the adults. She pulled on her jacket in the dark as quietly as she could to avoid waking the other girls, and she replaced Sakura’s blanket with a clean, dry one.

          “Huh? Why is Mari also under Sakura’s blanket?” Misato asked. 

          She shrugged, and went outside.

          Aoba greeted her in the dining room. He reported that their stocks of water were replenished due to last night’s rainfall, but the rain had made the ponds outside overflow, which meant that some of their paths away to different areas around the temple were flooded.

          “I’ll check the damage,” Misato yawned, taking her leave.

          Misato’s stomach growled as she made her way outside, and she blinked and saw a woman standing near the edge of the pond, looking right into its murky depths.

          “Hey, you okay there?” Misato called out.

          The woman flinched and turned towards Misato. The woman was young—Misato guessed that she had to be less than twenty years old—and she had light pink hair in a bob cut with bangs that covered her eyebrows. Her clothes and hair were stained a rusty brown with blood and dirt, and Misato felt a little pity for the woman.

          “Where did you come from?” Misato asked. “Where’s your group?”

          “I don’t know,” the woman answered, fidgeting. “I’m not sure what’s happening.”

          “You must have gotten separated from them. That downpour last night was wicked, right?” Misato joked, extending her hand for the shaken woman to take.

          The woman shyly took Misato’s hand, and Misato guided her into the temple.

          The woman introduced herself to the adults as Midori Kitakami, a radio-technician that had just graduated from college. After adjusting to them, Midori was very talkative and she prattled on about her college days like she had just had them a few weeks ago.

          “You’re kidding?” Aoba laughed. “You didn’t really set free a tarantula into your roommates’ bed, right?”

          “No, I totally did!” Midori chuckled. “She was so scared she almost wet herself. I thought the police were going to be called with all the screaming she did!”

          “We thought of doing that, didn’t we, Misato?” Aoba asked, hiding a smile behind his hand. “We were going to get a Gardner snake and put it in Aoba’s pillow for April Fools Day, our sophomore year.”

          “But, we ended up not being able to find any snakes,” Misato replied. “After I went through all that trouble to get a net and container, too.”

          “You’re lying,” Hyuga said, letting out a few shaky chuckles.

          “I told you we should have just bought one at the pet store,” Misato told Aoba.

          “You’re lying,” Hyuga repeated. He sounded less sure this time, though.

          “With what money?” Aoba countered. “We had to pawn my grandmother’s watch that week just to make rent, you remember?”

          “Oh yeah…” Misato said.

          “Please tell me you two are lying,” Hyuga asked in desperation.

          Asuka threw the room’s doors open. Hikari trailed behind her, rubbing her eyes.

          “The air is too dry. I’m thirsty,” Asuka demanded. “I’m not gonna wait until breakfast, just give me some water.”

          “Oh, Asuka,” Misato replied. “Good morning.”

          “Who the fuck are you?” Asuka asked, raising her brow at Midori.

          “Asuka! Be polite,” Misato said.

          Toji and Kensuke came into the room, the former picking his nose.

          “I’m starving,” Toji mumbled. He saw Midori, and he stopped walking.

          “Oi, who the fuck are you?” Toji asked, pointing his finger at Midori.

          Asuka looked at Misato, who was glaring at Toji, but Misato otherwise stayed silent.

          "How come you’re not gonna yell at him, huh?” Asuka challenged Misato. “Tell him off!”

          “Asuka,” Misato warned.

          “I’m calling double-standards!” Asuka said, slamming her hand on the table as she sat down. “He was just as rude as me.”

          Asuka whipped her head around to glower at Toji, who was now lazily scratching his back.

          “Girls just gotta be more polite than guys,” Toji murmured. Half-way through his sentence, he saw Asuka’s face change, but the words came through unbridled anyway.

          “I’ll kill you,” Asuka muttered, her teeth clenched. Hikari held her back as she made to get up. She wound up her fist to land a solid hit on Toji’s face.

          “What? I’m just only gonna get one punch in. Just one! It won’t hurt… just as long as he stays still,” Asuka smiled, her eyes darkening. Toji gulped and took a step back.

          “Pathetic,” Asuka said, spitting off to the side. She settled back down, and Hikari let go of her chest.

\-----

          Mari was the last kid to wake up. Even with over twelve hours of sleep, she felt like a bag of bricks had settled on her stomach. She wondered if she was catching a cold, but after she tried to wake up and her belly twinged, she realized she was just really sore.

          "Ow, ow…"

          Mari stood up gingerly. She changed out of her damp clothes, and she made a trip to check on her best friend. She passed the bloody spot on the wall where she had dropped Kaworu off the night before.

          Mari found Kaworu in the spare bedroom, awake but staring at his injured arm. Mari sat down next to him. Without turning around, Kaworu addressed her:

          “I seem to have gotten hurt, but I have no recollection of that happening.”

          “Yeah, well, you passed out last night. That’s why you don’t remember crap,” Mari replied.

          “What happened to the lurkers?” Kaworu asked.

          “I killed them all,” Mari replied. “I wasn’t able to stop one from chewing on your arm, though. Sorry about that.”

          Kaworu started to unwrap the bandages around his arm.

          “Um, you probably shouldn’t do that,” Mari warned.

          Kaworu looked at the putrid hole in his arm. It had begun to heal, but he still could see the edges where the lurker’s teeth had sunken into his flesh. Dried blood was caked on the expanse of his arm, and the stench made him flinch.

          “It’s fine,” Kaworu said. “I’ll be able to regenerate in a few hours. I’ve had worse injuries.”

          “Oh,” Mari answered, not sure how to reply. “Well, should I just leave you here? Are you coming to breakfast?”

          “No, I’m not hungry. Plus, I still feel like I was just hit by a truck,” Kaworu replied.

          “Oh, same here,” Mari said. “I wonder if we’re getting sick.”

          “Maybe. Or, we’re just sleep-deprived and exhausted bodily. We should take it easy for a while,” Kaworu said. “No more fighting lurkers in bloody battles.”

          “Roger that,” Mari replied, shooting him a cool look with her two finger guns. He smirked, but said nothing.

          Mari left Kaworu to rest. 

          She heard loud chatter from the dining room even before she opened its doors.

          Mari took one step into the room.

          “Mari, good morning!” Misato greeted. “We’re having lobster-flavored crackers.”

          Mari felt her mouth go dry as she stared at the newest person in the room. Misato looked to where she had her focus on.

          “Oh, Mari! Meet Midori. I just met her outside, isn’t that the craziest thing? She’s pretty funny,” Misato giggled.

          Midori stood up and offered up a hand for Mari to shake.

          “Are you all right, Mari? You look pale,” Misato said.

          Mari furiously blinked, taking in everything about the woman in front of her. Short hair, big eyes, voluptuous breasts, small hands, a thin waist…

          “You’re the lurker I fought last night,” Mari whimpered, terrified.

          “Huh? Say that again?” Midori asked. She turned to Misato.

          “What’s a ‘lurker?’” Midori questioned.

          “You don’t know what lurkers are?” Misato asked, confused. “That’s what we call those zombies.”

          “What zombies?” Midori asked.

          The room fell silent.

          “Why is everyone staring at me like that?” Midori asked, her voice shaking. She looked to everyone in turn, but received no encouraging looks.

          “You  _ were  _ that lurker…” Mari gaped, her face white as a sheet.

          “Huh?” Midori asked, her large lips quivering. “What are you saying?”

          “I gotta go get Kaworu,” Mari said. She scrambled out of the room and burst into the extra room, the doors slamming into the walls.

          “Fuck, Mari! Don’t scare me like that,” Kaworu yelped, throwing away his blankets to give her an exasperated look.

          “No, shut up Kaworu. I need to tell you something. I just remembered that there was one lurker that I didn’t kill last night,” Mari started.

          “Is it inside the temple? Is it hurting Shinji?” Kaworu asked, jumping up.

          “No! I mean, yes… to the first part. It’s sitting in the dining room, talking with everyone like it’s a regular human again… I think it came back to life,” Mari said.

          Kaworu shook his head.

          “No way. A lurker has never just reverted back to being normal. You probably mistook her for another lurker last night. It was dark,” Kaworu said.

          “No! I know I’m right,” Mari argued. “It was the same lurker that bit you, Kaworu!”

          Kaworu looked to the open hole in his arm.

          “I seem to have lost a lot of blood…” Kaworu commented. “If she had swallowed a lot of it, it’s possible that she went back to being human.”

          “Because of your alien antibodies in your blood?! That’s so sweet!” Mari gasped. “Do you know what this means? We can bring anyone back to life!!”

          “Hold on a second. This could have been a fluke. And, I’m not letting any other lurker gnaw on me to prove your hypothesis,” Kaworu said, defensively holding his arm. 

          Mari waved her hand dismissively.

          “Just wait until you meet her,” Mari said.

          Mari came back into the dining room, Kaworu in tow. Midori was being comforted by Misato, and she was crying into her shoulder.

          “Mari!” Misato said angrily. “Please tell Midori that you didn’t mean what you said, that you were lying.”

          Mari ignored her.

          “Hey, miss Midori, can you come here?” Kaworu asked. Midori tilted her head and wiped off her runny nose with her sleeve.

          “Why?” Midori asked.

          “I need to see how your teeth look,” Kaworu replied.

          “What!?” Misato gasped.

          Kaworu revealed the injury on his arm, and many people in the room winced. Sakura excused herself from the situation.

          “Can you open your mouth? I need you compare your incisors to the ones on my arm,” Kaworu explained to Midori.

          Midori spluttered, and Misato lurched forward.

          “Kaworu! What the hell are you saying?! You’re just scaring her!” Misato yelled.

          “Please just open your mouth,” Kaworu said. He held out his arm.

          Midori hesitantly opened her mouth. Kaworu knelt down, which startled her. He scrutinized her teeth, noting their sharpness and size.

          “It’s true,” Kaworu murmured. He bit his lip.

          “I knew I was right!” Mari said, posing extravagantly. She whirled around to point at Midori with an accusing finger.

          “I could have killed you, you know? You should count yourself lucky,” Misato said. Her tone started out light and kidding, but it became serious.

          “How did you die?” Mari asked.

          Midori backed up, distancing herself from Mari.

          “You all are talking crazy. I don’t want to be here,” Midori said. She held her hands over her ears.

          “I don’t see any bullet wounds, so you didn’t die that way. Now, what about stab marks?” Mari mused.

          Mari took a few steps towards Midori. Midori flinched.

          “Get away, you psycho!” Midori yelled.

         “You really don’t think lurkers exist?” Mari asked.

          “No! There’s no such things as-as zombies!” Midori shouted. “Those things exist in movies, and in books, not in real life!”

          “Oh really? Then, you wouldn’t mind coming outside with us, right?” Mari asked, her eyes flickering to Kaworu.

          “What do you mean…” Midori asked, her voice suspicious.

          Mari sauntered over and interlocked her arm with Midori’s, like they were best friends.

          “I’ll show you!” Mari sung.

          Mari took Midori out of the room and outside the temple. The rest of the group followed, most of them wary. Misato looked all around them for potential threats.

          Mari led them straight to the place where she had first encountered the lurkers.

          “Look here. Here’s the corpse of a… corpse,” Mari said, bending forward to look further at the dead lurker. “Huh.”

          “Are those the other lurkers you killed, Mari?” Kaworu asked.

          Misato, Hyuga, and Aoba went through the lurkers pockets. They found two of their IDs and a small bottle of aspirin in a lurker’s coat pocket.

          “I don’t believe it…” Midori said, her eyes wide as saucers. Misato patted her shoulder.

          “You said you fought them off, right?” Midori asked Mari.

          Mari nodded, still looking at one of the corpses.

          “That could have been me… oh god,” Midori moaned. She fell to the ground.

          Misato, Sakura, Hikari, and Shinji hurried over to help her off the ground. They told her to not worry, to forget about the past, because she couldn’t have controlled herself as a lurker.

          “I need to lie down,” Midori announced.

          “Of course, of course,” Misato soothed her.

          “I don’t think I can walk,” Midori said, stepping forward on one shaky leg.

          “Let me, miss,” Aoba said. He offered his arms to scoop Midori up, so he could carry her bridal style. The adults headed back to the temple.

          “Wow, so you killed all of them by yourself?” Asuka asked Mari.

          “Yeah,” Mari shrugged.

          Asuka whistled lowly.

          “Damn. I’ve got some newfound respect for you, girl,” Asuka said. She fistbumped Mari.

          “I’ve slaughtered some lurkers back during the museum scavenger missions, but I don’t think I could have killed so many on my own,” Asuka said, smiling.

          Mari half-returned her grin.

          “Thank you,” Mari replied.

          Asuka, Hikari, and Sakura went inside the temple.

          Mari let out a huge sigh.

          “Damn,” she said.

          “What’s wrong, Mari?” Kaworu asked, finally voicing the thought in his mind.

          “I realized something as I stared at the lurker’s body before. I didn’t want to voice it to the rest of the group…” Mari trailed off. She shook her head sadly.

          “What did you realize?” Shinji asked.

          “I’ve probably killed over fifty lurkers since the apocalypse began,” Mari started. “How many have you killed, Kaworu?”

          Kaworu thought for a second, closing his eyes.

          “I can remember thirty… maybe thirty-five,” Kaworu answered.

          “Shinji?” Mari asked.

          Shinji swayed from side to side, not meeting her eyes.

          “Um… I’ve probably… only killed one or two… with help, too,” Shinji replied. He felt weak saying that, especially in front of two people that had been strong enough to kill many lurkers.

          “So, with us, a combined total of over eighty people killed,” Mari said. She squinted her eyes and held her head like it hurt.

          “We killed eighty lurkers, not people,” Kaworu said, trying to cheer Mari up. Mari’s eyes flashed in anger.

          “Don’t you get it?!” Mari shouted, gesturing her hands wildly.

          “We killed eighty people! Eighty people that could have been saved and turned back into humans!” Mari yelled.

          Shinji and Kaworu stood there in shocked silence.

          “I never thought of it that way…” Kaworu said. “That’s…”

          “Fucking awful? That it makes us murderers? That we murdered tons of people? Oh yeah…” Mari yelled, her voice cutting like a shard of glass.

          “Don’t say that,” Kaworu chided her.

          Mari laughed hollowly.

          “And the worst part of it is that I was right next to the person that could have saved all of those people… all this time…” Mari said.

          “Don’t blame me! I didn’t know!” Kaworu yelled defensively.

Mari curled up into herself.

          “I don’t blame you!” Mari cried. She wiped her emerging tears vigorously, like they were an annoyance that needed to be dealt with.

          “I BLAME MYSELF!” Mari yelled. “I feel so stupid…”

          “Don’t blame yourself,” Shinji assured her. “It’s all pretty fucked up. Nobody knew.”

          “Yeah, damn right it’s fucked up. This perspective could have messed with the others— it could have unbalanced their moral pillars of right and wrong, and ruined their values of what they had to do to survive,” Mari said, her head in her hands. “That’s why I didn’t say anything.”

          “It’s for the best that you didn’t,” Kaworu said. “I agree, the others could have been more negatively affected with that realization than we were. Especially the other children, and Sakura…”

          Kaworu looked towards the temple.

          “That reminds me, I have to have a talk with Sakura,” Kaworu said.

          “Why?” Shinji asked.

          “I think it’s the right thing to do,” Kaworu answered, giving a vague answer that did and didn’t really answer his question. “I’ll meet you two inside.”

          Kaworu teleported into the temple.

          “Oh. He’s gone,” Shinji said. He turned to where Mari was, but found nothing but air. He looked around and found her walking away, towards the closest lurker corpse near the temple.

          Mari sat down next to a lump in the ground.

          Shinji joined her in sitting, too.

          “What’s that?” Shinji asked.

          “It was my old knife. She finally perished in last night’s battle,” Mari said, without a trace of humor in her voice.

          “I’m sorry,” Shinji said.

          Mari sighed.

          “It’s fine. I’ll find another beauty like her,” Mari said. “Plus, it was a fitting end for her to die in combat.”

          “Whatever you say, Mari,” Shinji joked.

          Mari’s lips quirked into a smile.

          “You know, one of the reasons why I felt fine killing lurkers was that I didn’t consider them human. I was even excited to kill them. They weren’t people anymore, but evil beings, like the ones in video games, that needed to be eradicated,” Mari said.

          “Do you think you’ve lost your drive to kill lurkers?” Shinji asked, expecting a not-serious answer.

          Mari brooded for some time. Shinji sat there, awkwardly, not sure what to say.

          “I really have lost one of my biggest character traits, haven’t I?” Mari smirked, gazing at the sky.

          Shinji clicked his tongue and punched her arm lightly. She gave him a smile.

\----

          Sakura was in the dining room when Kaworu found her. She was evidently hiding under the table in a fetal position, but she gave her position away as she crinkled the package of some crackers as she ate some.

          “Sakura?” Kaworu asked, peering down at her.

          Sakura glanced at Kaworu’s arm. He hastily covered his wound with his other arm.

          “Can I talk to you?” Kaworu asked.

          “Yeah,” Sakura replied. She wiggled out from under the table, and she sat next to him. She finished another cracker and started chewing on another one.

          “I wanted to apologize for this morning. I wasn’t thinking of how you would have reacted when I showed everyone my arm, and I’m sorry, Sakura,” Kaworu apologized.

          Sakura was silent for a few moments.

          “Yeah, I understand,” Sakura said.

          Kaworu saw that she still sat with her shoulders tense, so he said more.

          “I didn’t want to gross you out. I know that was an awful thing to see. I’m sorry,” Kaworu said again. “I just want you to know it wasn’t my intention.”

          “I know, but still,” Sakura said, puffing up and then deflating. She put down her crackers on her lap, her appetite gone. “That was really gross… your arm was all red, and the blood… I wanted to throw up.”

          “Can you still see the image of my arm in your head?” Kaworu asked, his voice soft.

          “Yeah, it’s still there. I can’t get it out,” Sakura replied. She shook her head and slapped her cheeks, but she still saw it.

          “I can erase the memory of that image, if you want,” Kaworu said. “You’d never see it again.”

          “Could you?” Sakura asked. She stared at Kaworu with twinkling eyes. “I would love that.”

          Kaworu nodded and cleared his mind. He pictured a link between his mind and Sakura’s. Sakura’s mind was like a cluttered library—spacious, with lots of room to fill up, but still busy at all times—and it accepted his connection easier than most adult’s minds did. 

          Kaworu filed that information away for analysis later. Was it Sakura’s trust in him that let him bridge the neural gap between them so quickly? How interesting.

          Kaworu saw scattered memories on the surface of the water that covered Sakura’s memories, and the brightest image he saw was of his own arm. He imagined wiping it away with a sponge, and as he scrubbed, it faded before his eyes. He exited the connection.

          “Wow, how did you do that…?” Sakura asked, blinking.

          Kaworu smiled.

          “It’s a secret,” Kaworu said.

          “Can you do that with all of my bad memories?” Sakura asked.

          “No, I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Kaworu answered.

          “Why?” Sakura asked, crossing her arms.

          “Everyone’s personality is shaped by the experiences they have in life. The good ones impact you, yes, but I would argue that the negative ones change you even more. It’s necessary for humans to suffer and feel pain in order for them to connect and sympathize with other people,” Kaworu explained.

          “Huh,” Sakura said. “I don’t get it. So, you have to be hurt in order to understand other people? That doesn’t sound good…”

          “Sadly, the lives of lillin aren’t free of sorrow. I wish I could wipe away the bad memories from every lillin’s mind, but alas, I would also be wiping away what makes them them,” Kaworu lamented.

          “You lost me,” Sakura said. “I’m going to get some juice, do you want any?”

          “No thank you, Sakura, but thank you for the offer.”

          Sakura scampered away, and Kaworu went to go find Mari and Shinji.


	20. Misato Decided to Take a STAB at It

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Misato and Kaworu visit back to Nerv, Shinji and Mari do some spying, and Aoba’s shirt gets ruined.

          Mari was with Shinji in the kitchen. Kneeling painfully on the counter, she reached as far as she could to try and see if there was anything useful on the top shelves. Shinji was shorter than her, so he stood on the floor, holding all the knives they had found.

          Out of nowhere, Kaworu teleported onto the counter.

          “WHoa!” Mari yelped, her leg slipping from the shock.

          “Ah!” Shinji gasped. He ended up dropping most of the knives onto the floor. He jumped back to try and not get cut. A few knives scraped his feet, but because he was wearing shoes, his toes were spared from harm.

          Shinji breathed a sigh of relief.

          “It’s  _ knife  _ that you’re wearing shoes, Shinji,” Kaworu commented, a smug smile curled on his face.

          “Shut the fuck up,” Mari replied. She righted herself back onto the counter.

          Shinji shook his head and puffed out his cheeks, slightly miffed. He bent down and tried reassembling his knife pile, but more knives fell out of his arms.

          Shinji groaned.

          “Why are you guys collecting knives, anyway?” Kaworu asked.

          “We’re gonna gut open a pig, obviously,” Mari drawled. “I’m craving pork.”

          “That sounds messy,” Kaworu said. “And, a bit  _ boar _ -ing.”

          Mari rolled her eyes.

          “I need a new knife,” Mari said.

          “But, all we’ve been able to find are either butter knives or cooking knives,” Shinji commented.

          “And those won’t do. Not at all. I need a stabbing knife, you feel me?” Mari said, straining her arm to reach on top of the shelf.

          “Why don’t you stand on top of the counter and look?” Kaworu asked.

          “I didn’t want to fall,” Mari huffed.

          “I don’t see anything up there,” Kaworu said.

          Mari glared at him.

          “You’re not helping,” she said.

          “Wow, what a  _ cutting _ remark, Mari,” Kaworu replied, holding in a laugh.

          “Stop with the puns, or I will actually kill you,” Mari said, holding up a knife. She turned back to the cupboards.

          “Go scan for some knife-y objects, or whatever you can do,” Mari said, waving her hand.

          “I’m not a robot,” Kaworu said, affronted.

          A knock came at the kitchen door. All of the three children looked at each other, waiting to see who was going to volunteer to open the door. With a sigh, Shinji abandoned his knife-gathering and threw all of them onto the floor.

          “Kaworu?” Misato’s voice called out. “I need to talk to you.”

          Shinji reached the door, and he opened it.

          Misato and Hyuga stood outside. 

          “Please come with us, Kaworu,” Misato said. She stepped onto one of the knives scattered across the floor, and she jumped.

          “What are all of these doing here?” Misato yelled. She caught sight of all of the cupboard doors and drawers being open.

          “Please explain this mess,” Misato said, looking to each of the kids in turn.

          “I wanted a new knife,” Mari said.

          “Why didn’t you ask any of the adults to help you?” Hyuga asked.

          Mari shrugged.

          “I’m not used to relying on adults for things. I just wanted to find all the knives I could to pick out the best ones,” Mari explained.

          “Can you clean this up, though?” Misato asked, trying not to step on any more knives. “This might take a few hours to clean up.”

          “Misato has a good  _ point _ ,” Kaworu commented. It took a second for Mari to recognize Kaworu’s pun, and she lunged at him to punch him in the stomach.

          “Mari, stop!” Kaworu laughed. “Stop! Stop trying to hit me.”

          “Stop squirming. Let’s get this over. One punch and I’ll forgive you. It’s better than me fulfilling my promise to kill you,” Mari said. “Unless you want that to happen?”

          All of the knives on the floor started to vibrate. Their clanging caused everyone to freeze. And then, all at once in a sudden flurry, all of the knives flew towards Kaworu’s body. They attached to his skin, knifepoint out, and covered his body.

          Mari lowered her fist.

          “Not fair!” Mari complained, crossing her arms. “You can’t just turn into a porcupine whenever you don’t want a punch to the gut.”

          “He does look like a hedgehog,” Shinji said, nodded. 

          “How does this help solve our knife dilemma?” Misato voiced. “As soon as he drops his… magnetic, or whatever, powers, all of the knives will go back onto the floor!”

          Kaworu pouted.

          “I got it, I got it,” Kaworu assured them. “I’ll reverse my magnetism and just put all of the knives into the drawers.”

          Kaworu confidently walked over to the open set of drawers. He directed the knives downwards, and let go of his magnetism. All of the knives jumped to the counters in a huge wave, some of them entirely missing the drawers and falling onto the floor. The counters became so full with scratches that it looked like a wild bear had ravaged the place.

          “Huh. That was not what I expected,” Kaworu mused. “That’s good enough, isn’t it?”

          Kaworu smiled at Misato. She affixed him with a glare.

          “Sorry to say this, but no, that’s not “good enough.” Mari and Shinji, please clean up the rest of these knives. As well, put the knives into the respective drawers, and not just everywhere,” Misato barked. “Kaworu, come with us.”

          Kaworu’s face fell.

          Kaworu accompanied Hyuga and Misato out of the room. He flashed a sorry smile towards Mari and Shinji, who were picking up the knives.

          Misato stopped them just in front of the stairs to the top of the temple. 

          “We need some privacy,” Misato stated.

          Kaworu raised his eyebrows, but followed them upstairs.

          “How is Midori doing?” Kaworu asked, trying to start up the conversation.

          “That’s part of what we actually want to ask you,” Misato answered. “Please sit down.”

          Kaworu sat down on the dusty attic floor.

          “Is what Mari said earlier true?” Misato asked. “Is Midori only alive… again… because of your blood? Is it an antidote?”

          “That’s correct,” Kaworu replied.

          Misato and Hyuga exchanged a long look. Misato looked resolute, but Hyuga seemed hesitant and uncomfortable.

          “Should we really do this, Misato?” Hyuga whispered.

          “Of course,” Misato nodded. She steeled herself and looked at Kaworu.

          “You’re going to accompany me back to Nerv,” Misato said.

          “What? Why?” Kaworu asked, confused. “I thought you never wanted to go back there.”

          Misato laughed dryly.

          “While that is true, there is something that has to be done,” she replied.

          “Okay…? So, when do we depart?” Kaworu asked. “Tonight? Tomorrow? A few days from now?”

          “Right now,” Misato replied.

          Misato roughly grabbed Kaworu’s arm. Kaworu tried to move away because her grip hurt, but Misato wasn’t going anywhere.

          “Take me to Nerv. Now,” Misato demanded.

          “Wait, I need to tell Shinji and Mari,” Kaworu said, looking to Hyuga for help.

          Hyuga wavered for a second, visibly fidgeting, but he breathed out and spoke.

          “I’ll tell them for you, Kaworu,” Hyuga said. He tried to give him a reassuring smile, but it ended up a grimace.

          Misato squeezed Kaworu’s arm, doubling the pain.

          “Let’s go,” Misato said, her eyes resolute.

          Kaworu teleported them to the front of Nerv.

\----

          It wasn’t until dinnertime that Shinji and Mari asked about Kaworu. Misato was conspicuously absent, so the two had to find another adult to ask. They ran into Aoba and Hyuga.

          “Kaworu? Misato? I have no idea where they would have went,” Aoba said, scratching his face. 

          Hyuga kept his mouth shut. He started sweating and glancing at Aoba.

          “Maybe they could have gone to the supermarket to get more food?” Aoba suggested.

          “No, we checked there already,” Mari replied.

          “Huh. That’s weird…” Aoba said. “Have you asked all of the other kids if they’ve seen Kaworu or Misato?”

          “Yeah, we asked everybody,” Shinji answered. “Nobody seems to know.”

          “Wow, that is unusual,” Aoba said.

          “Well, we better get back to the roof, Aoba,” Hyuga commented, trying to hide how much his body shook.

          However, to his chagrin, Aoba wasn’t listening. Aoba turned to him, setting off his alarm bells.

          “How about you, Hyuga?” Aoba asked. “Do you know what happened to those two?”

          Hyuga said nothing, internally panicking.

          ‘Why didn’t I think to make up a lie? I’m such an idiot,’ Hyuga thought. ‘This was bound to happen.’

          “Hyuga?” Aoba repeated.

          As the seconds passed, Aoba’s expression turned from perplexed to suspicious.

          “You know something about what’s going on,” Aoba claimed.

          Hyuga jumped.

          “What happened to Misato and Kaworu?” Aoba asked.

          Hyuga took Aoba’s arm, trying to lead him away.

          “Geez! I’ll tell you, I’ll tell you, just in private,” Hyuga whispered, glancing back to Mari and Shinji.

          The kids watched them head upstairs.

          “Something’s up,” Shinji said.

          “I was thinking the exact same thing,” Mari replied.

          “We should spy on them,” Shinji said.

          Mari nodded, and she walked towards the bathrooms.

          “Mari, wait! Where are you going, the stairs to the attic are this way!” Shinji said.

          “The stairs are too creaky. Our presence will be found out even before we get to the room,” Mari warned. “And, if we need to make our escape, we would have to run down the stairs, making too much noise.”

          “Then, what can we do?” Shinji asked.

          Mari took out a hidden knife out of her pocket and smiled.

          “I’ve got an idea.”

          Mari led Shinji to the bathrooms. She opened the closet that they used to store their toiletries and sanitary napkins. She kicked all of the materials to the side, and stood in the middle of the room. Using her knife, she punctured the ceiling above her.

          “Mari! What are you doing?!” Shinji shouted.

          “Shhh!” Mari said.

          Mari dragged her knife across the ceiling, cutting out a hole in the flimsy bamboo material.

          “The hallway to the attic door is right above us,” Mari explained, her voice quiet. “If we boost each other up, we can get to the attic and listen in on their conversation without alerting them.”

          “But, won’t they see a giant hole in the floor after they come out of the attic?” Shinji asked.

          “Nope, it’s too dark up there for them to see it. They’d have to be purposefully looking down the hall with a flashlight to spot it,” Mari said.

          “Are you sure?” Shinji asked.

          Mari pushed the hole out.

          “I’m super sure.” Mari smirked. “Now, hold out your hands so I can lift myself up.”

          Shinji complied with her request, and she used his hands as a stepping stone to boost herself up onto the second floor. She then reached for Shinji and pulled him up with a lot of effort.

          Shinji wiped off his dirty hands on his jeans.

          Mari pointed to the door, and they crawled over. It was shut tight, but through the thin sliding door, they could hear what they were saying.

          “Hyuga. You’ve got to be kidding me,” Aoba said.

          “I know, I know. I’m sorry for not telling you before, but me and Misato guessed that you would… oppose this plan,” Hyuga clarified.

          Aoba yelled, “Of course I oppose this!”

          Mari held back a snort.

          “You’re putting the lives of Misato and Kaworu in danger, don’t you know that, Hyuga?” Aoba said. “I bet you just agreed on the plan because of Misato.”

          “I did not!” Hyuga said defensively.

          “Look, dude, I know you’ve had a crush on her for, like, ten years, but you can’t just acquiesce to everything she thinks of—especially when she’s in a bad sort of mind!”

          “Shut up!” Hyuga yelled.

          “What if they don’t come back, huh? What if they get eaten? What if Kaworu runs out of energy and they’re stranded there?!” Aoba said, his voice rising in volume.

          Hyuga was silent.

          “What were you thinking…” Aoba said, trailing off.

          The room was silent for a long time. Hyuga started crying, and the kids heard his sniffing.

          “All we can do now is wait,” Aoba said. He sat down on the ground and ran his hands through his hair. “Damn.”

\----

          “Here we are,” Kaworu said, standing with Misato in front of the Nerv building that loomed above them.

          “No, I want to be inside. We need to be inside,” Misato growled.

          Kaworu transported them inside. He illuminated his body to light up the corridors, and Misato blinked to adjust her eyes to the light.

          “Where would you like us to go?” Kaworu asked.

          “The basement,” Misato replied.

          Kaworu teleported them into the basement, right after the door that led back to the testing room.

          “No, we need to go further down!” Misato yelled in frustration, shaking Kaworu’s arm.

          “Don’t yell at me! Just tell me where we need to go!” Kaworu retorted back. “I can’t keep teleporting everywhere— I’ll run out of energy!”

          “Well, you’re fine now, aren’t you?” Misato asked.

          Kaworu shook his head. He could feel himself sweating and getting colder.

          “I might only have a few teleports left,” Kaworu revealed.

          Misato huffed.

          “Fine, we can just walk,” Misato murmured.

          Misato and Kaworu stiffly walked to the last door at the end of the branching hall.

          “Why are we going here, to the cage room?” Kaworu asked. He tried taking a step back, but Misato didn’t let him.

          Misato opened the door.

          “Isn’t this where you had your fingers eaten off by a lurker?” Kaworu asked, his voice pleading. “Why would you want to come here? If anything, I’d think that this was the last place you’d go back to in this building.”

          Misato stilled at the mention of her injury, and she stared at her wounded hand.

          “You can fix me, right?” Misato asked.

          “What??” Kaworu replied.

          “You can bring back my fingers, right? Can’t you just teleport them out of the Kaji’s body and attach them back to my hand?” Misato smiled, bringing them forward.

          “No, no, no, I don’t think I can do that. The lurker has probably already digested your fingers… I mean, if they do have stomach bile and functioning organs, I don’t know,” Kaworu answered.

          Misato led them to the cage.

          “Unlock it,” she ordered.

          “Unlock it?!” Kaworu repeated, his voice shrill. “Are you serious?”

          “I don’t mean it like that. I don’t want _all_ the lurkers to come out,” Misato replied, shaking her head at him like he was stupid. “I just want Kaji.”

          Kaworu chanced a look at the snarling lurker she was referring to, and his stomach twisted.

          “No,” he replied, challenging Misato with his eyes.

          Misato lifted up the bottom of her shirt and pointed her gun at Kaworu. Kaworu froze, his eyes wide.

          “I’m not asking you to do this. I’m telling you.” Misato sneered.

          Kaworu lifted up his hands in surrender. He unlocked the cage’s electric safety lock with a glance to it, and he slowly opened up the door.

          “Kaji?” Misato called out.

          All of the lurkers came shuffling towards the door. A lurker that wasn’t Kaji made it to the door first, and Kaworu shut it again.

          “Bring him out,” Misato ordered.

          “How?” Kaworu asked.

          Misato clicked the safety off her gun.

          Kaworu gulped and thought of a solution. He created a translucent barrier and placed it in the cage, moving it outwards and pushing the lurkers towards the wall. When they were far away, he dropped the part of the layer that was holding Kaji back. Kaji stumbled forward and slowly stalked towards them.

          Misato and Kaworu backed up.

          When Kaji was out of the cage, Kaworu shut and locked the door again. He then disintegrated his barrier.

          Kaworu flopped down, holding his knees. He was breathing heavily.

          “You know what to do,” Misato said. She handed him a knife from her back pocket, still holding her gun to the side of his head.

          “No, I don’t know what to do,” Kaworu replied quietly.

          “Do what you did to Midori. Cut something off of you and feed it to him,” Misato barked. “It’ll grow back.”

          Kaworu shuddered. He debated transporting himself back to the temple, with or without her, but he knew that she could pull the trigger at a hair’s breath.

          Kaworu placed the knife to the skin of his hand. He took a deep breath in, glanced at Misato, and cut open his pointer finger. It stung like hell, and blood cascaded from under his skin and towards the ground.

          “You’re going to give him your fingers?” Misato asked, feeling queasy at the sight of his blood. “Or your hand?”

          “Not in a million years,” Kaworu retorted.

          “Hey, don’t mess around with me,” Misato warned. She moved her gun so it touched his head.

          Kaworu took in a shaky breath and cradled his injured hand.

          “Calm down, calm down. I have an idea,” Kaworu said.

          Kaworu studied Misato’s gun. He replicated its position with his hand, making a gun with his fingers.

          The blood dripping from his pointer finger stopped in mid-air, and it soon condensed back into his finger along with the blood he had already spilled onto the floor. When his finger was full, he grinned.

          “Bang!” Kaworu said, as he focused his energy on his hand.

          A thin stream of his blood shot like a bullet towards Kaji.

          “Don’t hurt him!” Misato yelled, attempting to throw herself in front of Kaji. Kaworu grabbed her.

          “Relax!” Kaworu urged her.

          Misato turned and watched as Kaworu’s streak of blood flew into Kaji’s open, moaning mouth. She lowered her gun and looked at Kaworu.

          “Him drinking it is probably the safest and quickest way to transfer it throughout his body. I wish I could inject it directly into his skull, where it could more effectively change the chemicals inside his brain, but I fear damaging any of his brain lobes,” Kaworu elaborated.

          Misato’s body slumped like it had been under a crushing weight. She didn’t speak for a few minutes.

          Kaworu held Kaji down as he struggled, the insides of his body at war with each other. He healed the small hole in his finger, which was still throbbing from the pain.

          “How long until he’s going to be okay again?” Misato asked, her voice barely above a whisper.

          “I would estimate three to four days,” Kaworu replied.

          Misato nodded.

          “Can you take us back to the temple? I’m tired,” Misato said. 

          Kaworu looked at how exhausted and Misato looked, with bags under her eyes, pale skin, and stark-white eyes. He felt pity towards her. However, he couldn’t make himself feel forgiveness towards her after what she’d done.

          “Of course,” Kaworu said. He teleported the three of them back to the temple.

          “I feel like I’m going to pass out soon, Misato. Are you guys able to restrain Kaji after my powers are gone?” Kaworu asked.

          “Yep!” Misato chirped, her voice filled with excitement. “We have some rope in the storage room.”

          Kaworu nodded, and the two of them, plus the “Kaji” lurker, headed inside. 

\----

          Shinji and Mari sat in the bathroom, terrified and speechless about what they overheard.

          “Will Kaworu die?” Shinji asked, sitting curled up with his knees against his chest.

          Mari was silent. She had no answer to his question, and she was fuming.

          Upstairs, the two adults finished their conversation and headed downstairs.

          “As long as Kaji comes back, it will be fine,” Hyuga commented as they reached the main floor.

          Aoba laughed, throwing his head back. Hyuga turned towards him, startled.

          “Is that really how both of you see it?” Aoba asked rhetorically. “The ends justify the means?”

          Hyuga scowled.

          Aoba parted with Hyuga, sick of his presence, and patrolled around the compound. He said hello to Sakura, Asuka, and Hikari, who were in the girl’s room coloring inside some used coloring books. He also checked up on Toji and Kensuke. Toji was fast asleep, taking his third nap of the day, and Kensuke was rereading one of his comic books.

          Aoba headed back into the main hall. He noticed an awful stench.

          “Eugh! What is that? Is something rotting?” Aoba asked himself. He followed the grotesque smell into the storage room, and he opened the door, exposing himself to a weird sight.

          A lurker with brown hair in a ponytail was being tied up against a pole by Misato. Kaworu laid on the floor face-down, passed out cold. The whole room smelled like a morgue.

          “What is going on?” Aoba asked loudly.

          Misato jumped.

          “Aoba!” Misato laughed guiltily. “What are you doing here?”

          “Don’t try and play dumb, Misato. Aoba told me what you two did,” Aoba growled. He picked up Kaworu by his armpits and began dragging him out of the room.

          “Aoba, I’m so sorry—” Misato apologized.

          A weird gurgle came from Kaji’s mouth, taking all of their attention. Kaji’s head leaned forwards and he threw up something.

          “Eww!” Misato yelped. She bent over to see what he had thrown up. She saw that it was a finger, and she recognized its familiar small, filed-down nails.

          It was hers.

          Misato promptly hurled chunks as well. She fainted, and Aoba dropped one of Kaworu’s arms to catch her.

          Misato? Misato?!” Aoba asked. Hearing no response, and looking down to see his shirt covered in green, chunky vomit, he groaned.

          Aoba set down Kaworu. He then took out the walkie-talkie from his pocket and asked for Hyuga.

          “Yeah, I need some help,” Aoba said.

          “What’s the situation?” Hyuga asked, his voice muffled with static.

          “You don’t even want to know,” Aoba said. “Just, bring the mop and bucket… and a new shirt...”


	21. "I'm sorry"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kaworu apologizes to two different people. Everyone has a nice dinner, and Shinji learns of some news.

          “Ow,” Kaworu said.

          “I haven’t even stuck the needle in your arm,” Misato replied, clicking her tongue. She again moved the syringe closer to Kaworu.

          “Ow!” Kaworu flinched, prompting Misato to do the same.

          “Kaworu! Stop that!” Misato yelled. Her lips were set in a thin line.

          Kaworu snorted.

          Misato tried once more to puncture Kaworu’s skin, but he yelped “Ow!” again, and she jumped.

          Misato groaned and placed the syringe back onto the table.

          “I can’t do this. Hyuga, help me,” Misato said. She sat down in the chair next to the futon that Kaworu laid on.

          Kaworu smirked, a hint of vindication in his eye. He glanced at Shinji, who was sitting in the room, his face pale.

          Shinji was staring at the needle with apprehension.

          “Shinji? Do you have to leave?” Kaworu asked. He looked at Mari, who sat next to Shinji, and she looked at Shinji too with concern.

          Shinji started answering with a no, but after the syringe went into Kaworu’s arm, his face went sheet-white. Shinji shivered and looked away, and he nodded.

          Mari took Shinji by the arm and led him out of the room.

          “I’ll be fine, Shinji,” Kaworu said. “I’ll see you soon, love.”

          Shinji weakly waved good-bye to him, and the two went out of the room. That left Kaworu with only Hyuga and Misato.

          Kaworu’s smile fell, and he assumed his unamused face.

          Hyuga ended drawing blood from him. He wiped off the needle and excused himself to inject Kaji, who was tied up in the attic.

          That left Kaworu with Misato.

          The two didn’t speak for a long time, and Misato cleared her throat.

          “Thank you for this,” Misato finally said. She opened her mouth to say more, but she found she couldn’t.

          Kaworu declined to reply.

          The tension hung in the air, thick enough to slice a knife through.

          “I’m sorry,” Misato said, exhaling loudly. She ran her fingers across her face and through her hair.

          Kaworu kept staring at the wall.

          “I don’t know what else to say. I’m sorry for what happened. For dragging you to Nerv… for doing… everything,” Misato said.

          Kaworu’s brows raised, and he glanced at her for a second.

          “Damn it, what do you want me to say?” Misato asked, her voice rising. She walked into Kaworu’s field of vision. He glared at her.

          “Say something! How can I make this better? What do you want me to do?! I’m sorry!” Misato yelled.

          Kaworu sneered at her, his lip curling.

          “Please go away,” Kaworu said.

          “I know you’ve been ignoring me this whole day,” Misato said. “Ever since you woke up, you’ve done nothing but whisper to Mari and Shinji.”

          Kaworu looked towards the door. He wondered where Shinji and Mari were, and he regretted not sending a signal to Mari for her to come back.

          He really wished that Misato would leave him alone. He didn’t want to look at her—nevermind endure talking with her about what happened. It was pure agony.

          “Why are you doing this, Kaworu. I’ve apologized to you over and over again,” Misato said, a sorrowful cadence in her voice.

          Her lip trembled, and Kaworu hoped that she didn’t start to cry. Tears welled up in her eyes, and Kaworu’s resolve shattered, if just for that moment.

          “I know, I know. I understand,” Kaworu replied. He rested his head on his hand and looked up at her.

          “I know you do!” Misato said. She blinked quickly, and then touched her fingertips to her eyes to feel their wetness.

          “I just know you haven’t forgiven me,” Misato said. “And… that really hurts. It cuts me inside.”

          Kaworu sighed. He didn’t know what to say, so he just repeated the human customary two-word phrase that ran through his head.

          “I’m sorry.”

          He knew he didn’t mean it.

          Misato bit back a sob. She shook her head, and then slowly walked out of the room. She paused at the doorway, and tried to catch his eyes, but he turned away.

          Misato’s mind felt bogged down. Almost like a walking zombie, she headed upstairs without thinking until she found Hyuga sitting in front of Kaji.

          Hyuga turned towards her, and he gave her a smile.

          Misato didn’t feel like returning it. She shrugged, and Hyuga’s smile slowly transformed into his neutral expression. He adjusted his glasses and looked at Kaji.

          “I’ve just given him his third injection. He should be changing soon,” Hyuga reported.

          Misato walked closer. She kneeled next to Kaji, and stuck out her hand to grasp his.

          The lurker growled and his teeth gnashed, but his struggles were fruitless.

          Misato smiled wryly.

          “I know you’ll come back fine, Kaji. I’ve missed you so much,” Misato said.

          After a minute of rubbing her thumb on his cold, clammy hand, Hyuga coughed.

          “How long until we can take another sample from Kaworu, do you think?” He asked.

          Misato squeezed Kaji’s hand and let go. As she turned towards Hyuga, she thought she saw a flash of disgust on his face, but it disappeared just as soon as she noticed it.

          “Probably a few hours. I’m not sure if his blood replenishes itself like a human’s, but we still shouldn’t take too much. After this next one, we should give him a few days to recover,” Misato replied.

          Hyuga glanced at Kaji and a small smile lit up his face.

          “It’ll be a while until Kaji’s back to human, then?” Hyuga asked. “That’s too bad…”

          Hyuga’s voice dripped with facetiousness, which Misato found odd, but she forgot about it a second later, when a knock came from the door.

          “Who is it?” Misato asked.

          “It’s Aoba.”

          Misato unlocked the door and Aoba let himself in.

          Aoba sat down. He counted the colored puncture marks on Kaji’s skin, which were situated right onto his veins.

          “I didn’t know you were a nurse, Hyuga,” Aoba commented.

          Hyuga frowned.

          “I’m not. I just had some training on basic safety and doctoral procedures, that’s all,” he replied.

          “Did you learn CPR?” Aoba asked, thinking of those ugly, humanoid training dummies with the huge lips that participants had to kiss and breathe into. He kicked the shoe of Kaji, which prompted a glower from Misato.

          “Please stop asking me these questions,” Hyuga said.

          Aoba mumbled something that sounded suspiciously like “tight-ass,” and he got up to leave.

          “I hope you’re not thinking of taking any more blood from the kid, Misato,” Aoba said, his jocular voice replaced with a serious tone.

          “We can’t promise anything, Aoba. You know that,” Hyuga replied.

          Aoba gave him a look that conveyed what he was thinking, which was: ‘Shut up, I didn’t ask you.’

          “He has to get better. I just want him to be better. I want my old Kaji back,” Misato said. She turned to Aoba.

          “Wouldn’t you do the same in my position?” Misato asked.

          Aoba grimaced, but bit back his retort of replying “No.”

          “That’s what I thought,” Misato said. She chanced a feel of Kaji’s once-silky hair. Aoba looked at Hyuga, whose face showed unbridled contempt.

          Misato turned back to Aoba, and Hyuga’s face shifted back to a frown. The dichotomy of Hyuga's expressions irritated Aoba.

          “Shouldn’t you be checking on everyone?” Misato asked Aoba, trying to shoo him out of the room. “And, getting dinner ready?”

          Aoba scowled at the both of them, and he then silently made his way out of the room.

          “What awful people,” Aoba muttered under his breath, heading down the stairs.

          He got to the first floor landing, and he leaned on the wall, thinking.

          Where had everything gone wrong?

          His friends, who he had held in such high-esteem until just a few days ago, now seemed unbearable to him.

          “They’re just liars. Lying to themselves, and lying to everyone,” Aoba breathed.

          “Who are liars?”

          Aoba jumped. Sakura stood in front of him, holding a stuffed animal bunny to her chest, and looking confused.

          “Sakura! You scared me…” Aoba said, taking deep breaths in. He shook the shock away, and then walked with her to the dining room.

          “I wasn’t talking about anybody,” Aoba said. “Just… yeah.”

          Aoba had no idea how to explain anything of what was happening to Sakura. Instead, he turned towards a distraction.

          “Are you hungry?” Aoba asked.

          “Starving!” Sakura grinned. “What’s for dinner?”

          Sakura held up her arm, and Aoba intertwined his with hers, like a gentleman.

          “I’ll make something special, just wait until you see it,” Aoba teased.

          Sakura giggled.

          He accompanied her to where they stored their piles of convenience-store food. Aoba dug through the closet for a few minutes before shouting an “Aha!”

          He pulled out a cast-iron pot.

          “What’s that for?” Sakura asked, tilting her head.

          “We’re gonna have something yummy tonight. I’m feeling adventurous,” Aoba replied.

\---

          An hour later, everyone sat in the dining room.

          For the first time in a while, everyone was present to eat. Misato and Hyuga seemed uncomfortable, and Kaworu and Mari were studiously ignoring them, but Aoba ignored all of the pressure in the room.

          With a flourish and a bright-pink-and-checkered oven mitt, Aoba opened the steaming pot.

          “Tada!” Aoba said.

          “Is that… instant ramen?” Mari asked, leaning forward.

          Inside the pot was an amalgamation of all the different packaged ramens they had collected. There was chicken, shrimp, pork, beef, and creamy chicken flavoring, and tiny freeze-dried vegetables floated on top of the noodles like ships on the sea.

          “I was thinking that we haven’t had soup in a long while. Or, even a proper meal. Not since the museum, when Misato used to cook for us with fresh vegetables every night,” Aoba rambled.

          Misato shot him a half-smile, and Aoba returned it. He still felt distaste towards her recent actions, but in the bottom of his heart, he still liked her as a sister.

          They’d been friends for years. This snag was enough for Aoba to feel differently about his buddies, but maybe there was hope to rectify their relationship.

          “Is that edible?” Asuka asked. She sniffed, recoiled, and pointed at the soup mixture.

          “This smells like shit,” Asuka said.

          Toji laughed, and Misato shushed them both.

          “No swearing during dinner,” Misato reprimanded.

          “After dinner, then, is cool though?” Asuka gave her a shit-eating grin.

          Misato’s hands fisted in her lap, and she breathed, summoning patience from the deepest, farthest part of her soul.

          “Let’s eat,” Sakura smiled. She handed Aoba her bowl and spoon, and he began to give them all their soup.

          Aoba served himself last. There were very few noodles and vegetables still left in the pot, but he simply sighed and got over it.

          “This is pretty good,” Hikari said, slurping her noodles.

          “I wish I had my nice chopsticks,” Asuka said. She picked up the stray vegetables stuck at the bottom of her bowl with her hands.

          Shinji slowly drank the rest of his broth. He had been looking at both Mari and Kaworu this whole night, and they were both talking in hushed tones whenever they thought he wasn’t listening.

          He felt left out, but he hesitated on prying on their conversation. He knew they likely wouldn’t get mad at him, but there was always this irrational fear of having people be angry at his failure to do something he should have known to do/ not to do.

          Mari, Kaworu, and Shinji excused themselves from dinner once they were done. Shinji waved farewell to everyone, including Misato, but the other two kids didn’t look back.

          Shinji hastened to catch up with them.

          “I know it’s not going to go well.” Shinji caught Kaworu saying this to Mari, his eyes hard.

          “But are you sure you owe it to them to stay here until…” Mari trailed off. Shinji walked right beside them, and she clamped her mouth shut.

          Shinji’s eyes widened at the mention of “staying,” and his mind immediately thought of the worst scenario: Kaworu and Mari going somewhere else without telling him and leaving him behind.

          All three teenagers went into the boy’s bedroom.

          Kaworu kicked off his socks for bed, and he shivered. The room was a bit cold. Autumn was nearly upon them, and he sadly thought of the soon-to-be chilly temperatures that they would have to sleep through.

          Kaworu sat down on the floor. Mari looked out the door for anyone coming, and then shut the door with her foot.

          “We need to tell you something, Shinji,” Kaworu said.

          Shinji’s stomach dropped, but he nodded.

          “We’ve been thinking of leaving… for a while,” Kaworu started, not looking Shinji in the eye. “And with recent events, I can’t merely just entertain the notion. I’ve decided.”

          “Leaving… the temple?” Shinji asked. “All of us?”

          “Yes,” Kaworu answered, taking a load off of Shinji's shoulders. “I think, for the best of us, we need to break away from this group. It’s becoming too toxic.”

          “Toxic?” Shinji asked.

          Shinji bit his lip and thought of what Misato did to Kaworu, but those negative emotions were overruled with the loyalty he’d felt towards Misato for taking him in and keeping him safe all these years,

          “Plus, the group is too big. It’s unsustainable to keep together a large group in the long-run, and especially without a base that is self-sustaining,” Mari explained. “One day—maybe not sometime soon, but one day— supplies from the convenience store will run out. Food. Medical supplies. Self-care materials.”

          “But, we have guns… we can fight, and we can go somewhere else…” Shinji replied, holding up his hands. “We don’t need to split up.”

          “Yes, but someday your guns will become useless without bullets. This group has what—three adults? And eight kids for them to protect, to take care of,” Mari said. “It’s nothing short of a miracle that this group has been able to survive so long, really..”

          “In any case, we should leave. It would better both us and the group’s situation, because they’d have fewer mouths to feed, and we’d be able to find somewhere else to camp out at,” Kaworu said.

          “I don’t know if I can do that,” Shinji answered. He ran his tongue through his teeth, and he felt like he was going to cry.

          “I’ve been with Misato and everyone since I was a kid. I can’t abandon them,” Shinji said.

Shinji looked up at Mari and Kaworu, whose faces were incredulous, unbelieving, almost like they couldn’t understand what he was saying.

          “I can’t come with you.”

          Shinji’s words cut through the air like lightning.

          Kaworu stumbled back as if struck.

          Mari’s brows knitted, and she shook her head in disbelief.

          “You don’t mean that, Shinji,” Kaworu swallowed. “You know that we have to leave, we have to.”

          “No, we don’t!” Shinji yelled. Tears fell down the apples of his cheeks.

          “I’ve never been on my own. I’m not like you two. I’m not strong, not hardy— I can’t fend for myself!” Shinji said. “I’m weak…”

          “We’ll fend for you!” Mari replied. “Don’t you know that Kaworu and I would do anything for you, Shinji?”

          “Yes, you don’t have to be strong, Shinji. I’d protect you—give you anything you wanted or desired. We could live happily,” Kaworu said, his voice wavering with emotion.

          Kaworu extended his hand towards Shinji’s. Shinji’s hand clenched, but he kept it at his side.

          “I can’t leave them… What will happen if we’re not with them? What if you’re not there, Kaworu?” Shinji asked. He started to hiccup, and his legs shook with the effort of keeping himself standing.

          “They’ll be alright, Shinji. Weren’t they in the years that we weren’t here, yeah?” Mari asked.

          Shinji knew she was right. He put his face in his hands and dried off his eyes. Kaworu came over to hug him.

          Kaworu wrapped his arms behind Shinji’s back. Shinji leaned his head into the crook of Kaworu’s shoulder, his body shaking.

          “What about Kaji…? Are you guys going to stay until he’s recovered?” Shinji asked.

          “Of course,” Kaworu whispered back to him. “We were just talking about that, actually.”

          Kaworu started petting Shinji’s hair.

          “Mari is fine with leaving at any time, but I want to make sure that I don’t go until the lurker is back to a human. I wouldn’t want everyone to have to just deal with a lurker inside the temple, anyway. That wouldn’t be right.”

          Kaworu chuckled. Shinji felt the vibrations from his throat.

          “How long until he is going to be better, then?” Shinji asked.

          “I estimate a week at most. Three to four days is probably the most likely answer,” Kaworu replied. “I could speed up the process by giving them more of my blood, but that runs the risk of me becoming ill.”

          “Yes, please don’t do that! I don’t want you to get sick again… and I want to be able to say my good-byes,” Shinji said, sniffing.

          “I know. I’m sorry,” Kaworu said.

          For the first time that day, he meant it.

          Mari excused herself to the girl’s bedroom, and Shinji and Kaworu laid down together. Kaworu kept close to Shinji for his warmth.

          Shinji yawned, and Kaworu glanced upwards to turn off the light.

          “Good night, Kaworu,” Shinji said.

          “Good night, Shinji,” Kaworu replied.

          Kaworu snaked his leg in between Shinji’s, and once his boyfriend fell asleep, he listened to his slow, even breaths until sleep came to overtake him as well.


	22. Say 'Uncle'

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Asuka challenges Toji to a stupid dare, someone finally wakes up, and some family members fight.

          Shinji woke up to Kaworu breathing on his neck. He tried to scooch away and fall back asleep again, but he ended up bumping his nose into the wall.

          Shinji opened his eyes. He was staring right into the corner of the room, and Kaworu laid behind him snoring. Somehow during the night, Kaworu had cornered him here, and with Kaworu’s body squishing him into the wall, he couldn’t move.

          “Kaworu,” Shinji groaned.

          Kaworu shifted his head closer to Shinji’s neck.

          “You’re crushing me, Kaworu. I’m breathing in wall,” Shinji whined, kicking Kaworu’s foot.

          Kaworu licked a long stripe up Shinji’s neck.

          “Kaworu, gross!” Shinji screeched, sitting up and wiping his the spit off his neck with his hand. Kaworu laughed, and Shinji reached for Kaworu’s face with his saliva-covered hand.

          Kaworu furiously jerked away from Shinji’s hand, and it was Shinji’s turn to smirk. Shinji leapt at Kaworu, smearing his face and hair with his own spit. Kaworu half-tried to push him off, but Shinji crawled over his body and pinned him to the ground.

          “I see how it is…” Kaworu said.

          Kaworu tackled Shinji and smirked down at him, wiggling his fingers. He tickled Shinji’s armpits and legs.

          Shinji laughed and pushed at him to stop. 

          Shinji’s leg then swung and accidentally kicked Kaworu in the face.

          “Fuck,” Kaworu swore.

          “Oh my god, I’m so sorry! Kaworu, are you okay?” Shinji asked, sitting up.

          The red imprint of Shinji’s foot burst out on Kaworu’s cheek, and he grimaced.

          “Yeah, I’m okay. It’s not your fault, Shinji.” Kaworu assured him.

          Shinji frowned; he still felt bad. He sat on his knees.

          “Do you want me to get something for you to put on your cheek? It’s swelling up,” Shinji asked, thinking of their medicinal supplies on hand. He frowned. “It’s too bad that we don’t have anything cold…”

          Kaworu laughed.

          “That won’t be a problem very soon, I think. It will snow soon,” Kaworu commented, staring out the window at the trees devoid of their leaves.

          “Yeah, but then we’ll have too many cold things.” Shinji shivered. “I hate winter.”

          “Because it’s so cold?” Kaworu asked. “Well, you know that I  _ could _ just send us all to Costa Rica for the winter... if you’d like that?”

          “Could you?” Shinji asked, his eyes sparkling like stars in the night sky.

          “Theoretically, yes,” Kaworu replied.

          Shinji threw up his hands in the air and danced around.

          Kaworu tried to warn him, but Shinji ended up stepping right on Toji’s stomach, who had pulled his pillow over his ears to block out the sounds of their voices.

          “Oof!” Toji had the air squished out of him. Shinji screamed, startled.

          Kensuke sat up and put his glasses on.

          Toji held his stomach, grimacing like a dying man. 

          “Welp,” Kaworu said, observing from the sidelines.

          “I’m so sorry, Toji! It was on accident,” Shinji apologized.

          Toji’s gaze landed on Shinji, and in his irises, there burned hellfire. 

          “Fuck you, dude,” Toji spat out.

          Shinji backed away.

          Wincing, Toji stood up and used his height advantage of a few inches to intimidate Shinji, who bit his lip, trying to get out of his shadow.

          “Listen to me,” Toji snarled, poking Shinji’s chest with his finger.

          “I know you think you’re invincible because of your alien-god-whatever-boyfriend, but let me remind you right here and now that, contrary to popular belief,” Toji got in Shinji’s face, to where Shinji could trace the red blood veins in Toji’s eyes, “you two aren’t the most important people on the planet, so fucking show some respect for everyone else. Got it?”

          Shinji nodded. His throat felt like it was filled with gunk, so he cleared it before speaking:

          “I understand, Toji.”

          Toji stepped back, his eyes still glued to Shinji’s face, and his face still humorlessly unsmiling.

          “Come on, Kensuke, let’s go.” Toji gestured two fingers towards the door, and Kensuke breathed out and nodded.

          Toji and Kensuke, without acknowledging or looking at anyone else in the room, made to leave. Toji clutched the door handle.

          “I’m sorry,” Shinji called out.

          Toji stilled for a brief second, and he was out the door, leaving an open-mouthed Kensuke looking back at Shinji.

          Shinji chanced a small smile at Kensuke, and his lip twitched.

          “Thanks,” Kensuke mumbled, with flushed cheeks and his eyes to the side.

          Kensuke caught sight of Toji’s retreating back, and so he hastened to catch up with his friend.

\----

          “Next time, if you lay on me, I’ll sit on you,” Shinji warned Kaworu, digging into his breakfast: orange slices and crackers and fake-cheese that came from an obnoxiously orange can.

          Kaworu snickered, and Shinji looked up from putting more strange cheese on his cracker with a butter knife.

          “Would you really? Where would you sit on me?” Kaworu grinned, resting his chin on his palm. His eyes were hooded.

          “Dudes,” Mari said, her eyes not wandering from the girlie magazine she was reading for entirely un-intellectual purposes. Mari absentmindedly bent down to affix her mouth onto the straw of her juice box.

          “Your back?” Shinji answered, returning Kaworu’s sultry gaze with an awkward smile.

          Kaworu bent over the table to lean into Shinji’s ear. Shinji blushed, but forced his expression into neutrality. His hands on his lap itched to touch Kaworu’s hair, his face, his neck—anywhere he could reach.

          Kaworu licked his lips and Shinji’s skin erupted in goosebumps at the hot breath against his ear.

          “Why don’t you sit on my face, Shinji?” Kaworu whispered. He lightly grazed his teeth over Shinji’s earlobe, and Shinji shuddered.

          Kaworu caught Mari’s eyes, and she raised one of her eyebrows, adjusted her glasses with her middle finger, and turned back down to her magazine.

          “Why would I sit on your face? Wouldn’t you be unable to b-breathe?” Shinji asked, finally allowing himself to raise an arm to thread his fingers through Kaworu’s hair.

          The tips of Shinji’s ears went red, and then the hair on his neck stood up, as he thought of how the whole room must be watching them flirt.

          Shinji hesitantly looked beyond Kaworu to the end of the table.

          “Well, I’d love it if you sat on me with your clothes off, Shinji,” Kaworu replied.

          It took whole a minute after watching Toji chug down a whole can of cheese (i.e. spraying it right into his mouth) after being dared by Asuka for Shinji to comprehend what Kaworu had said.

          “Oh.”

          Kaworu smirked, and Shinji’s mind went blank at the image it conjured. His face became even redder, and Kaworu closed the distance between them to press his lips to Shinji’s.

          Shinji threw his hands around Kaworu’s neck as they kissed. His tongue glided into Kaworu’s mouth, and Kaworu let out a low moan.

          Their tongues mixed together, sliding all across the warm caverns of their mouths.

          Shinji felt heat travel through his body, and he felt his dick twitch. He felt like purring.

          “Holy shit…” Asuka muttered.

          Shinji’s and Kaworu’s eyes snapped open to look at Asuka. They parted their lips; a line of saliva connected their mouths.

          Asuka was hunched over Toji, who was turning green.

          “Are you okay?” Asuka asked. 

          Toji’s stomach grumbled loudly, and he shook his head and placed his hands over his mouth in an attempt to not puke.

          “I feel like I’m going to die,” Toji whimpered.

          “I’ll get a bucket,” Misato sighed, running upstairs.

          “Help me, Kensuke,” Toji said.

          Kensuke knelt down to his side. Toji laid on the floor, tears welling in his eyes.

          “I can see the light…” Toji whispered, reaching his shaking hand skyward.

          Kensuke rolled his eyes.

          “Dude, don’t be overdramatic, you’ll be fine,” Kensuke deadpanned.

          Toji punched Kensuke’s arm. 

          They exchanged frowns, and then grins. Kensuke punched him lightly back.

          “If I puke, do I still win the dare?” Toji asked Asuka.

          Asuka thought for a minute.

          “Whatever,” she shrugged. “You got it all down, anyway.”

          Toji pumped his fist in the air… and then proceeded to spew orange vomit onto the floor. 

          Toji’s body shook, and he reached up for Kensuke’s hand to pull him up out of his puddle of iridescent puke.

          “Eww, gross, dude! Couldn’t you have waited for the bucket?” Kensuke asked, flinching.

          Hyuga looks overhead, to the attic.

          “Misato is taking quite a long time…” Hyuga commented.

          “If she’s talking to the lurker again, or even touching it, I’m going to smack her,” Aoba scowled, crossing his arms.

          “Aoba, dude, that was her boyfriend. Have some sort of respect,” Hyuga chided.

          Aoba rolled his eyes.

          “It sure isn’t her boyfriend now. Last time I checked, boyfriends didn’t eat your fingers, or try and eat your face off when you get close,” Aoba retorted. “Even with all the blood we’ve pumped into him, I’m still skeptical about him even turning back to normal.”

          “We’ve already deduced that Kaworu’s blood is a vaccine,” Mari interjected, chewing on her bendy straw. “Midori is alive again, isn’t she?”

          Mari looked at Midori, who nodded after a beat. Her pink hair bobbed as she moved her head.

          “If his blood cured me, then that lurker guy should be fine, too,” Midori said.

          “Yeah, but like… I don’t know, I’m still wary about all of this. It’s been a week since we’ve brought the lurker into the temple, and he hasn’t changed at all,” Aoba said.

          Kaworu coughed.

          “The initial changes are mostly internal,” Kaworu said. “The body has to regrow and refunction its organs so that it can survive without human flesh again, and it probably saves the programming of the frontal lobe—the center of a human’s personality— for last, because, you know, it’s gotta relearn how to live.”

          Aoba shot a dirty look at Kaworu for his mocking tone, but didn’t argue with him.

          Aoba sighed.

          “Fine, let’s just go upstairs. Let’s see what Misato is doing, and see if “Kaji” has woken up yet,” Aoba said, throwing his hands up in submission.

          They all filed behind Aoba, who conspicuously brought out his gun and flipped its safety off.

          Aoba placed one of his large palms on the attic door, and it opened gradually with a creak.

          “—I don’t remember doing that!”

          “Kaji, you’re so mean! Of course you remember doing that, don’t lie!”

          Misato smacked an unfamilar man's arm playfully and began laughing, and the man joined in with her. He threw his head back as he laughed, and his long hair shone in the room’s light as it cascaded down his back.

          “Kaji…” Mari whimpered, stepping forward as cautiously as a newborn deer.  


          The stranger turned towards the door. His eyes were blue, his face was expressive, and his tattered clothes and sunken in cheeks didn’t fit in with the energy and confidence that shone out of him.

          “Holy shit, Mari… is that you?” Kaji asked.

          “It sure is,” Mari replied, standing herself up straighter and smirking.

          “Wow…” Kaji said, honestly speechless.

          Mari bounded towards her uncle and grabbed him into a crushing hug.

          “You’ve gotten so tall!” Kaji said, measuring how she once stood near his waist. “And, you’re wearing glasses?”

          “Of course. My eyesight is shit,” Mari chuckled. 

          “How old are you now? Seventeen?” Kaji asked.

          “Chill! I’m only fifteen. I don’t look _ that _ old,” Mari chided, waving her hands in front of his face.

          Kaji stuck out his tongue at her.

          “Dude,” Hyuga said, coming up to grab Kaji’s arm. To his embarrassment, Kaji pulled him into a side-hug.

          “Aoba, get over here,” Kaji said, wrapping around Aoba like a vine, and pulling him close.

          Aoba stopped blinking every millisecond—like this wasn’t reality, and he was going to wake up anytime now. Aoba patted his back awkwardly, and then smiled wide.

          “You’re back!?” Aoba yelled.

          “Sure…?” Kaji laughed. Aoba swung him around in a hug.

          As they spun, Kaji’s blue eyes inadvertently met Kaworu’s red. Kaji stiffened in Aoba's arms.  


          “You.” Kaji scowled, trying to pry Aoba off of him. “What are  _ you _ doing here?!”

          “Long time no see,” Kaworu said, no trace of good feelings in his voice.   


          “Huh? Does he have beef with you?” Mari asked Kaworu out of the corner of her mouth.  He subtly turned to Mari.

          “It’s... complicated. Long story short, this was my mistake. When you were telling me about your uncle, I didn’t connect that  _ this _ Kaji was him, i.e. one of the workers at Nerv I saw occasionally,” Kaworu muttered in Mari’s ear. “This is an unwelcome and unforeseen circumstance, but nevertheless, I’ll be kind to him for your sake.”

          “You’re the kid experiment that got away and ruined everything!” Kaji pointed at Kaworu, scowling. He lunged at him, but Aoba held him back. “I even volunteered—volunteered!—to be one of the first infected so that they could try out the virus, but you ran away! Goddamnit, you ruined everything, Tabris!”

          Kaworu flinched at the mention of his old, alien name, and everyone in the room stared at him.

          ‘I was afraid of this…’ Kaworu thought, a bead of sweat slowly falling down his forehead.

          “Imagine how it felt to hear the news—that you were gone!—just a few minutes after getting the virus injected into our bodies… we were devastated, and our colleagues were forced to lock us up until they recovered you and made the cure!” Kaji yelled.

          ‘Great, now I’m going to have to explain my backstory and what happened at Nerv to everyone here who doesn’t know.’ Kaworu groaned internally. ‘Just, please shut up, dude.’

          “It was agony, the hours of waiting… watching everyone around us slowly turn… and realizing I was the last one left…” Kaji stared at the ground. “How I clawed at those bars, begged to be rescued out of the cage… yet, nobody came.”

          Misato looked like she was about to be sick.

          “And, by the looks of it, they never found you in time,” Kaji scoffed. “My little niece has grown up, the world’s gone to shit… and it’s all because of you.”

          Kaji locked eyes with Kaworu’s in a heated, heavy gaze.

          The whole room was speechless. Nobody even dared to breathe too loudly— lest the story stopped being told.

          “I know,” Kaworu conceded.

          Mari turned to him, her brows furrowed.

          “Dude, don’t say that! We’ve talked about this. You didn’t know…” Mari looked at her uncle. “ _ He _ didn’t know, so he shouldn’t blame himself.”

          “Come  _ on _ , Mari. He started the fucking  _ apocalypse _ ! If he’s not at fault, then whose fault is it?!” Kaji asked, emphasizing his anger with a few sweeping hand gestures. 

          Mari shook her head and gave him a conflicting look that read of sadness and anger. She huffed, and glared at her uncle like he was an idiot.

          “Hmm, I don’t know, maybe the goddamn sad-excuses-for-scientists shitfaces at Nerv who engineered the virus in the first place?!” Mari retorted, her voice dripping with so much sarcasm that she could create lakes out of the holes in Kaji’s logic. “I knew you worked for them for a while, but Jesus Christ, you actually can’t be defending them here.”

          Mari hid her face in her hands, ashamed.

          “They kept him locked up his entire life, like he was nothing more than an animal. He wasn’t allowed freedom, or happiness, and he was repeatedly hurt and exploited by the people that he thought he could trust. I don’t even understand how he survived what he went through; just thinking about it makes me sick,” Mari said.

          “What Tabris did to us, to humanity, Mari, is inexcusable—”

          “ _ Kaworu _ is my best friend,” Mari interjected, planting herself firmly right in front of her uncle and glaring up at him. “He’s kept me company in these past hellish years, I’ve protected him, he’s protected me, and he’s the greatest, most unselfish person I’ve ever met.”

          Kaji opened his mouth, but Mari snapped at him.

          “And, asshole, he’s the reason that you’re here, standing in front of us right now, so be thankful!” Mari pointed her finger in his face, and he blinked twice.

          “Huh?” Kaji asked.

          “He gave you a dosage of his blood—actually many doses, so you could recover,” Mari explained.

          Misato raised her hand to get Kaji’s attention. In a soft voice, she spoke:

          “I can vouch for that.”

          Kaji looked at Kaworu again, but he couldn’t stop himself from glowering at him. Seeing him reminded him too much of the past— which seemed to him to be only days ago, even though everything happened years in the past.  


          Kaworu shrugged.

          “Tsk,” Kaji said. He and Misato excused themselves from the room, and the other adults followed.

          The children looked at each other for a while, some of them not bothering to hide their unabashed staring at Kaworu, and Kaworu felt a headache coming on.

          “What the hell does ‘Tabris’ mean?” Toji asked, scratching his arm.

          Kaworu yawned.

          “It loosely means ‘being of free will’ in my native language,” Kaworu answered.

          "'Native language?' Your alien race has a language all of its own??" Kensuke asked, his jaw dropping.  


          Kaworu half-smiled.   


          "I suppose so, yes. However, from years of not speaking or reading it, I've forgotten most of it," Kaworu revealed.   


          "Well, it's not like there's a Rosetta Stone for your alien words," Mari joked, prodding Kaworu with her elbow. However, she became serious after a second.  


          "Is... there?" Mari wondered aloud, scratching her chin like a wise, diligent wizard.  


          “So your real name is Tabris? ... Should we call you by that name?” Sakura asked. She grabbed the edge of Toji’s shirt, and he let her do that without any protest.

          Kaworu held back a shudder.

          “No way,” Kaworu replied, holding up his hand.  “I kinda hate my old name, and I know it’s like representative of who I am and the choices I’ve made—and it’s a powerful name—but I’ve only been called it by the people who kept me captive, so…”

          “Okay,” Sakura said.

          “You really started the apocalypse? Did the lurkers come from you?” Kensuke asked, his eyes wide.

          Kaworu breathed out a long breath. He sat on the ground cross-legged, and threw his head back to rest it on the wall.

          “It’ll be awhile if you want me to tell you everything, so you all should probably sit down.”


	23. Kaworu Explains Everything

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kaworu tells everyone his tale and gets very choked up.

          Kaworu blew his hair out of his eyes as all of the children gathered around him. When a few strands refused to cooperate, he frowned and plucked them away one-by-one. 

          “Is your hair bothering you?” Mari asked, her head resting on her knees.

          “Yeah, it’s getting too long,” Kaworu replied. He played with the fluffy hair covering the back of his neck, and his fingers skimmed over the lurker bite that he had gotten long ago. It was mostly healed over, but a sandpaper-y scab remained—a reminder of the start of the apocalypse, the first lurkers he fought, and the futility of dying.

          Shinji came over to sit by Kaworu. He glimpsed the teeth marks Kaworu was touching; he remembered how he had once seen them as Kaworu’s figure was staring out the window, and how they were revealed in the moon’s curtains of light.

          “Does it hurt?” Shinji asked.

          “Huh?” Kaworu replied, brushing down his hair.

          “The lurker bites on the side of your neck? Your fingers seemed to be rubbing over them, so I thought…”

          Kaworu smiled.

          “Oh, no, no. They’re fine and long-healed-over,” he answered. “Please don’t worry.”

          “Which bites?” Mari asked. She looked over from Kaworu to Shinji, and then craned her head to try and see where they were. Kaworu flipped over his hair to show her.

          “Ouch,” Mari winced. “Those look deep.”

          “How did you get them?” Sakura asked, resting her head on Toji’s shoulder.

          Toji blinked, looked at his sister, and threw an arm around her to pull her closer to him— all the while faintly blushing and not looking at anyone else in the room.

          “Years ago,” Kaworu replied. “Shortly before I found Mari, and about half a year after I escaped from the facility, I'd been attacked by my first lurker. Before that, though, I had a pretty good life. I’d been living alone, on the streets, and relatively enjoying my new, free life.”

          “You said once that you ‘basked in the light and warmth of the outside,’” Mari commented.

          Kaworu nodded, a pleased grin appearing on his face.

          “Yes, that was wonderful,” Kaworu said, closing his eyes. “Inside that place, it was always cold, and the artificial lights blared so harshly that they hurt my eyes. But outside— where the air wrapped around you and soothed your chilling bones with a warm embrace, and the sun’s rays lit up everything in a way that wasn’t blistering, but gentle…”

          Kaworu sighed.

          “It was like heaven.”

          Kensuke raised his hand and stared at Kaworu, who, amusedly, called on him to speak— like he was the teacher, and this was his curious student.

          “Where did you ‘escape from?’” Kensuke asked.

          “From a place called “Nerv.” It was where Misato, Aoba, Hyuga, and Kaji used to work,” Kaworu answered. “I was held there as a science experiment.”

          “Because you’re an alien?” Sakura chirped.

          “Precisely,” Kaworu replied.

          “Ooh, did they like…  _ probe _ you?” Kensuke asked, his eyes wide. “Like in those sci-fo]i movies?”

          Kaworu swallowed, visibly uncomfortable.

          “Yes, I suppose.” 

          “Did they run tests on you? Did they find if you were made of substances not found on Earth? Did they experiment with your powers?” Kensuke asked, stumbling over his words as he got progressively more excited.

          “I mean… yeah… they ran tests on me, but they didn’t do other stuff like that.” Kaworu grimaced.

          “What did they do, then?? Oh man, how cool would it have been to be on their team—” Kensuke rambled.

          “Stop right there,” Kaworu said, cutting him off. “Please don’t say that. They were awful people—nothing like the scientists you might revere.”

          “But—”

          “No. What they did was not respectable. They tested me, yes, but the methods they used were inhumane and illegal in every way— they violated the United Nation’s ethical codes, the Geneva Convention’s treaties detailing the limits of torture of captured persons, they just—”

          Kaworu had to take a minute to catch his breath and calm down.

          “They treated me like I was an animal… or maybe even worse, like I wasn’t something that breathed and felt emotions like everyone else. For a few months they injected me with every element of the periodic table to see how it affected my body, and then they moved onto testing which poisons would affect or come close to killing me, and at what doses, and they monitored how sick I’d become, and once I refused the shots they would put the substances in my food, and then after I stopped eating they’d dissolve them in my water, and—”

          Mari clapped a hand on Kaworu’s shoulder. He jumped.

          “Breathe, Kaworu. Breathe.”

          Kaworu began to hiccup from the lack of consistent airflow, and he concentrated on taking in deep “ocean” breaths and exhaling them slowly.

          “They tried finding my pain tolerance. They found out how strong I was, how fast I was, and how long I could keep running if threatened,” Kaworu shivered. “They showed me fearful things: guns, spiders, hornets, and observed my reactions in the name of “science.”

          “Holy shit,” Kensuke said.

          “So, no, you shouldn’t want to have worked for them,” Kaworu smiled bitterly. “Of course, there were many kind scientists who were morally opposed to treating me that way, but they all got fired, and soon it was only the abhorrent scientists who remained in my care.”

          Sakura sniffled. Kaworu turned to her and saw that she had been bawling, and trying her hardest not to make any noises that would disrupt his story.

          Kaworu wasn’t halfway through saying Sakura’s name when she bounded towards him and got him in a hug. She loudly cried onto his shoulder, her body trembling, and attempted to apologize for what had happened.

          “I-It’s not your fault, Sakura,” Kaworu said, rubbing her back.

“NO!” she sniffed. “It is. We were so BAD in treating you!! I HATE THEM!”

          “Yes, but even so, you guys aren’t the ones at fault. I know you would never wish to hurt me that way,” Kaworu replied.

          Kaworu locked eyes with Toji, who gave him an awkward smile. He attempted to get up, tasking himself with the mission of prying his sister off of Kaworu, but Kaworu shook his head at him.

          “Never!” Sakura replied angrily, almost snarling. “We’d never do that to you!”

          Sakura let go of Kaworu and stood up to look down on him.

          “You’re not a human, no, but you’re just as important as the rest of us.”

          Sakura patted his head. Kaworu held back from crying by biting his lip, and then Sakura bent down again to give him another hug. 

          This time, though, Kaworu’s head was resting on her.

          “There, there,” Sakura comforted him.

          Toji’s cheeks burned as bright as the sun as he watched their exchange, and he face-palmed. Hikari elbowed him, glaring at him as if to say ‘knock it off!’

          Sakura hugged Kaworu for a few more moments, and she patted his shoulder like a fatherly figure and sat right down next to Toji.

          When everything was silent for a minute, Sakura clicked her tongue and rolled her eyes in a way that was remarkably Asuka-esque.

          “Well, continue your story!” Sakura drawled, waving her hand impatiently in the air.

          “Yes, right,” Kaworu cleared his throat. “Uh… where was I?”

          “Just tell us how the lurkers were created,” Asuka snapped.

          “Of course. You see, one experiment of Nerv’s was to see if my body made any proteins or bacteria that were foreign to Earth and its humans. They did find one new strand, and they were so ecstatic that tested that one out for weeks.”

          “I was actually left alone for a while, which was nice. However, once they had successfully replicated and modified the strand, they needed more and more of it from me,” Kaworu smiled ruefully. “They then injected it into lab mice, and then dogs, and then humans— all for the purpose of observing how my proteins would affect and poison living things’ ability to think rationally… thereby eventually turning them insane.”

          “God, that’s awful…” Hikari said.

          “So, that’s how the lurkers were born? From your blood, or bacteria, or whatever?” Asuka asked, drumming her fingers on her arm.

          “Basically, yes.”

          “That sucks,” Hikari said.

          Kaworu half-shrugged.

          “Yeah, it does. It sucks knowing that you’re the reason—”

          Mari poked Kaworu and raised her eyebrow at him.

          “I mean, the  _ main _ reason why so many humans have died—”

          Mari shook her head and poked Kaworu, much harder this time.

          “OKAY, okay. Jeez! I’m merely, only, just _ ONE _ of the reasons why over half of the Earth’s human population has perished, and I was  _ ONE _ of the factors that led to the  _ WORST MASS EXTINCTION  _ of the human race that has ever happened EVER. An extinction that exceeds the death toll of the Black Plague—which devastated Europe’s, China’s, and the Middle East’s population in the fourteenth century, and which killed over sixty percent of Europeans—and of the Holocaust, which lasted from the early 1930’s to 1945, and some estimates have found that the Nazi regime had fucking killed over  _ twenty million people _ , which included people of Jewish faith, homosexuals, communists, war prisoners or traitors, disabled people, Jehovah’s witnesses—”

          “Do you understand all of what he’s saying?” Shinji whispered to Mari.

          “Not everything, no. I knew he was like a living textbook, but christ!” Mari whispered back.

          “—Romani people, people of Polish descent, and Serbian people.”

          After finishing his long sentence, Kaworu took a long, audible breath in.

          “Anyway, yes. It sucks,” Kaworu said.

          “Wow,” Hikari replied.

          “Do you guys have any other questions?” Kaworu asked.

          “Not really. It’s almost dinnertime,” Toji said.

          Kensuke hummed for a moment.

          “I have a lot of other things I’d like to know about you, but now isn’t probably the time,” Kensuke replied truthfully, and a little guiltily.

          “Yeah, this conversation was tough for you, dude. Good job,” Mari said, clapping Kaworu on the back much harder than what was necessary.

          “Thanks, Mari,” Kaworu coughed out.

          “What are we having for dinner?” Sakura asked her brother.

          “I don’t know— do you think I cook? Why don’t you go ask Misato,” Toji ordered.

          Sakura stuck out her tongue at him. She skipped down the stairs with her brother and Kensuke following behind her.

          “I’m starved,” Asuka commented, stretching her arms over her head and yawning. “Let’s go get some grub.”

          “Thanks for telling us everything, Kaworu,” Hikari said, smiling. She grabbed Asuka’s hand and they went downstairs together.

          Shinji and Mari came up to Kaworu.

          “You okay?” Mari asked Kaworu, who was now silently crying again.

          “Of course, why wouldn’t I be okay?” Kaworu said as he wiped off his tears with the back of his hand.

          “Something just gives me the impression,” Mari joked.

          “I’ll be fine. Just, come here.” Kaworu held out his arms for Shinji.

          Shinji walked into his embrace, and like a venus fly-trap, Kaworu encircled him and didn’t seem to want to let go of him anytime soon.

          “Don’t feel sad, Kaworu,” Shinji whispered. He brushed through Kaworu’s shaggy hair at the back of his neck.

          “I’m not sad at all; it’s just the opposite, I’m so happy,” Kaworu replied, sniffling. “I can’t believe that you all accept me for who I am, and that hasn’t hit me until now really. How lucky I am, and stuff…”

          “Psh. Someone would have to be a total loser to not accept you, Kaworu. Like, only total lame-os with the emotional range of a teaspoon could ever hate you,” Mari said. “They’d rather cry themselves to sleep than try and understand how great you are.”

          “Sure,” Kaworu said, rolling his eyes.

          “Shut up, I’m trying to comfort you,” Mari replied, punching him in the arm.

          “Yeah, I know. And you know what?” Kaworu asked.

          “What?”

          “It’s working, Mari. Thank you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was an emotional chapter to write. I hope you all felt some kind of feelings while reading it, too :')


	24. Hikari Has Some Concerns About This

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The adults arrange a celebration of Kaji's revival, and Hikari and Asuka get heated.

          To celebrate Kaji’s return, Aoba and Hyuga made the walk down to the convenience store, and upon their return, Misato hosted a feast of sugary and salty high-calorie junk foods. The crinkling of plastic wrappers filled the room, and everyone started to stuff their bellies.

          Shinji moaned in delight at the lovely taste of his snack-cakes. They were topped with fake vanilla and chocolate icing, and stuffed with silky buttercream, and he couldn’t stop munching on them and licking his fingers until they were gone.

          “I haven’t had any sweets in such a long time,” Shinji said. “These are delicious! Damn, I wish I knew what real cake tasted like.”

          “Me too,” Sakura said.

          “Cheap convenience store donuts are the best,” Mari commented, biting into a chocolate donut filled with cherry-flavored jelly.

          “I agree wholeheartedly,” Kaworu replied. He had finished his donut filled with white Bavarian crème in just a few seconds.

          Hikari sat on the ground, unmoving. She observed as everyone wildy ate and drank like there was no tomorrow, and she couldn’t understand everyone’s carelessness. She jiggled her leg until Asuka gave her a look.

          Asuka patted her leg, but Hikari began jiggling it harder and grinding her teeth.

          Confused, Asuka stared at her. Hikari met her eyes and looked away.

          “You… seem like you want to say something… maybe?” Asuka asked her girlfriend, cautiously scooting closer to her.

          Hikari felt imaginary stormclouds settle overhead, and they began to rain down on her, dampening her mood. She sighed and shrugged her shoulders, and felt a bit guilty at taking a bit of fun away from the party.

          “Whatever. I don’t want to be a spoilsport,” Hikari whispered. “Just ignore me.”

          To give herself few seconds to think, Asuka took a long sip of her soda and weighed what she was going to say.

          “You won’t be bothering me,” Asuka began. “Plus, seeing you all gloomy like that is making me want to do anything I can just to put a smile again on your beautiful face, so please, tell me what’s on your mind.”

          Hikari’s cheeks reddened.

          “I don’t know… I just feel bad that—”

          A disgusting belch barreled out of Asuka’s mouth without any warning, and she shoved her hand in front of her face in an afterwards, too-late attempt to stop it.

          Hikari’s stormcloud darkened above her, and her glare returned.

          “Sorry,” Asuka apologized. She sat down her soda pop and cleared her throat. “Please, start again.”

          Hikari sighed. 

          “I just… I don’t know… I just feel weird eating all this food after having rationed meals for years. This seems like a waste of supplies, and we’ve been working our hardest to conserve as much food as we can, right? Are we sure that we should be doing this?” 

          Hikari glumly grabbed a bag of barbeque chips, and she reached inside and ate a few chips.

          “I suppose, yeah. You’re right,” Asuka said, sipping again on her drink. “This is stupid.”

          “Right?” Hikari smiled, grateful that her girlfriend agreed with her.

          “I would object to it now, and even fight with Misato, but—”

          From the other side of the room, Misato loudly popped a bottle of champagne. She hooted, the other adults cheered, and Asuka snuck a handful of chips from Hikari while her girlfriend was looking the other way.

          “—I don’t think I can convince her now,” Asuka finished.

          Please don’t talk with your mouth open— wait, are those  _ my _ chips?” Hikari scoffed. She pried Asuka’s mouth open, and Asuka happily showed her all of the mushed food inside her mouth.

          “Gross!” Hikari yelled.

          “I don’t know, it tastes pretty good to me,” Asuka joked, winking at Hikari.

          Hikari narrowed her eyes and placed her bag of chips on the other side of her body.

          “Still, I want to ask how our rations are faring,” Hikari said. She stood up.

          “Maybe if she gets drunk enough she’ll tell you everything,” Asuka commented.

          “Ahh!” Hikari promptly sat down and faced away from Misato. “Now she’s talking with Shinji and Kaji. I can’t interrupt her now!”

          “I’m sure it’s fine,” Asuka said. “Just go up and ask her.”

          “Maybe I should use Sakura as a diversion…” Hikari thought aloud.

          Asuka chuckled.

          “Stop thinking about it too much. I’m sure she’ll be happy to talk with you,” Asuka said.

          “Really?” Hikari asked. “Are you sure?”

          “Positive. Go get ‘em.”

          With gusto, and a well-meaning shove from Asuka, Hikari stumbled to Misato’s side.

          Misato was cackling at the sarcastic remark Shinji had made. Hikari softly called out her name a few times, and then resorted to poking her arm and getting in her line of vision.

          “Oh, Hikari!” Misato burped.

          Misato threw an arm around Hikari. Her beer sploshed onto Hikari’s shirt and pants, and Hikari shivered in her now-wet clothing. Misato didn’t seem to notice what she’d done, and instead affixed Hikari with a dopey, drunk grin.

          “It’s nice to see you again!” Misato slurred, her voice volume exponentially louder than usual. “What’s up, girl??”

          “Uh…” Hikari trailed off.

          “Cat got your tongue, huh?” Misato laughed. Her cheeks shone even redder, and her eyes almost seemed to cross as she tried focusing on Hikari’s face.

          “Wow, you’re blurry!” Misato yelled. 

          “You’ve drunk too much, Misato!” Kaji said, which prompted all of the plastered adults to guffaw.

          Misato clinked glasses with Kaji and Hyuga and gulped around another full drink in one breath. Hikari watched her in horror, and even Asuka stood up and joined them, gently grabbing Hikari away from Misato’s arms.

          “I haven’t had a drink in ages! I forgot how wonderful it feels~” Misato sang. Her tone then became somber, as she added:

          “I wish that I could be buzzed like this all the time…”

          “You loved living like that, right? Remember college, Misato? You were always at bars with me, drinking until we were kicked out,” Kaji reminisced. “You were a fucking riot!”

          Misato giggled.

          “I  _ was _ always the life of the party,” she preened.

          “Hikari has a question to ask you,” Asuka butted in, glaring at all of the adults. She made a mental note to never drink, not even once, because how could you allow yourself to become so stupid and idiotic and  _ embarrassing _ —

          “Oh, right!” Misato laughed. “Lay it on me, Hikari~”

          “I… it’s about the party we’re having… today. Right now,” Hikari mumbled. “I don’t think that we should be eating all of this food.”

          “Oh shut up,” Toji muttered, chewing furiously on a stick of spiced beef jerky.

          Hikari tsked, and Asuka’s eyes shot daggers at him.

          “We’re just having fun, okay?” Toji continued. “Seize the day, you only live once, blah blah and all of that. Lighten up, Hikari.”

          “I’m just worried about the food supply. You wouldn’t be laughing at me if we ran out of food tomorrow, Toji,” Hikari said.

          “Yeah, you’d have to eat dirt and bugs just to survive. You’d have to even wash it all down with your pee, once we run out of drinking water,” Asuka stepped up to Toji, challenging him.

          “How’d you like that, huh? Drinking your own piss to survive. I bet you couldn’t even do it if you had to. You’d just die, because your little baby sensibilities couldn’t even handle the taste of your piss, and your body would just shrivel up like a raisin,” Asuka taunted.

          "Fuck off,” Toji spat.

          “What, too much of a pissbaby to drink your own piss, huh? Does it gross you out too much?” Asuka smirked.

“Shut up!” Toji yelled, slamming down his energy drink.

          “Stop fighting!” Hikari said. “I’m  _ trying _ to talk to Misato, here!”

          They stopped talking, and Hikari approached Misato again.

          “What were they talking about? I couldn’t hear,” Misato asked, messing up her words again.

          “It’s nothing,” Hikari replied. “Anyway, I wanted to ask you about how… well our food supplies are doing.”

          Misato tilted her head. Hyuga turned his head and glanced at Misato; he had been listening in to their conversation.

          “Huh? Our food?” Misato questioned.

          “Yes, the convenience store’s food. I want to know if we still have enough to survive, since tonight we’re pretty much… burning through days… or even weeks?... of supplies.”

          Misato seemed sad for a minute.

          “I was going to wait until this party was over to tell you, but…” Misato said.

          “Misato!” Hyuga smiled and threw an arm around her shoulders, attempting to save Misato. “Haha, that can wait until tomorrow, can’t it? Let’s go play some games with Aoba and… Kaji, okay?” 

          Hikari looked from Misato to Hyuga. “What is going on?” she asked.

          “Nothing, nothing at all!” Hyuga stuttered, waving his hands.

          Hikari narrowed her eyes. Hyuga started to sweat.

          “I want to tell her...” Misato said.

          “Tell me what?” Hikari asked.

          “Misato, please, really, this should wait until tomorrow,” Hyuga insisted, attempting to drag Misato away. However, she stood firm.

          “Tell me what?” Hikari repeated.

          Misato groaned.

          “We’re running out of food,” Misato divulged.

          Hikari’s face went white.

          “Y-you’re kidding me…”

          “Misato, shh!” Hyuga said. He tried to cover Misato’s mouth with his hands, but she slapped them away.

          “We’re thinking of abandoning this place tomorrow and heading up north,” Misato said, ignoring Hyuga’s never-ending pleas for her to stop talking. “We talked about it last night, and then all this morning, and we came to the decision that that would be for the best.”

          “By ‘we,’ you mean all of the adults,” Asuka commented. “Wow. So, you guys didn’t think it was necessary to invite all of us to your impromptu decide-the-group’s-future meeting?”

          “We just didn’t want to wake you guys up early, or-or interrupt your sleep—”

          Asuka shut Hyuga down.

          “More like you didn’t think our opinions were important,” she snarled.

          “Why are we going to move up north?” Sakura asked, halting mid-bite in her gummy bears.

          “The lurkers will be less concentrated up north, and Kaji told me that the lurkers might move slower in colder temperatures,” Misato replied.

          “Hmm, that’s an interesting theory. Why does he think that?” Kaworu asked.

          “He said that the cannibalistic, infected lab animals were more sluggish in chilly rooms versus warm ones, putting them in the freezer made them almost stop moving altogether,” Misato answered.

          “You put  _ animals  _ in  _ freezers _ ?!” Hikari gasped.

          “I’m pretty sure any kind of animal stuck in a freezer would stop moving,” Toji commented. Kensuke sat beside him, frozen in shock.

          “But winter is coming,” Shinji interjected. “The cold is bad enough down here, but up north—it would be almost unbearable.”

          “We’ll wear jacket! It’ll be alright,” Misato replied. “We’ll even make igloos if we get too cold!”

          Sakura gasped at the thought of living in a real-life igloo.

          “Aren’t igloos a bit too impractical?” Kensuke asked. “They have only one entrance and exit, they aren’t mobile, and they can take quite a long time to make, can’t they?”

          “I suppose…” Misato muttered.

          “Do you have a place in mind that you’re going to?” Kaworu asked.

          “We’re thinking Akita. It’s a bit far away, but its natural hot springs could keep us warm,” Kaji said.

          “And it has lots of museums!” Misato added, her eyes bright. “We could find one and rebuild a shelter like we used to have.”

          “That actually… sounds fun. It could work,” Hikari said.

          “I wanna go to a hot spring!” Sakura smiled.

          As the kids and adults chatted about their new destination, Kaworu guided Mari and Shinji out of the crowd.

          “Akita is really far away,” Kaworu said, crossing his arms. “I’m sorry to have to say this, but this might be where we have to part from the group.”

          “Really?... Oh…” Shinji trailed off.

          “I’m ready to leave any time,” Mari said. She twirled a lock of hair around her finger.

          “Of course, we can always pop up there and visit them,” Kaworu assured Shinji. “You can still go to the hot springs with them, but… I think it would be best for us if we went back to Nerv.”

          “Huh?” Shinji asked.

          “What? What do you mean, Kaworu?” Mari asked.

          Kaworu swallowed.

          “I don’t want to say this, and believe me— I wish I had any better ideas than this one, but I’ll need the help of Nerv’s scientists if I want to save humanity. I’ll… have to revive them. The human race needs a vaccine, and even though my insides crawl at the thought of seeing them again, I have no idea how to do this by myself,” Kaworu said, closing his eyes.

          “Jeez, buddy…” Mari said. "That's going to be rough."

          “I know,” Kaworu replied.

          Mari sighed, and then straightened up. The bags under Kaworu’s eyes seemed to darken as he kept thinking about the scientists that mistreated him, and she knew that he was consumed with thoughts and scenarios of the future ahead.

          “Dude, Kaworu. Don’t worry. Everything will turn out fine,” Mari assured him.

          Kaworu opened his eyes and smiled.

          “How do you know that?” Kaworu asked.

          “Because I’ll be the one protecting you, duh,” Mari replied. “And, Shinji will be there to give you kisses and hugs all of the way.”

          Mari winked at Kaworu.

          “Shut up,” Kaworu said, turning away and blushing at the kindness of his friends.

          Shinji came up and rubbed his shoulder.

          “I’m here for you,” he said.

          Kaworu hid his smile.

          “You guys are too kind to me.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for such nice comments and kudos! It made me so happy reading your reactions to my writing, and I made myself sit down and write two more chapters for you guys! <3 Thank you!


	25. Mari Gets a Cool Pair of Sunglasses

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mari talks to a squirrel, her uncle, and then Kaworu... through unusual means.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope y'all like this fairly Mari-centric chapter. I love writing her, lol.

          “Whoa, where are my sunglasses?” Kaji asked. He shoved his arm into his backpack and went through its contents with his hands, but he didn’t feel the familiar plastic-and-glass shape of it.

          “I don’t know,” Misato shrugged. She was in the process of folding up all of her t-shirts army-style, which meant just rolling them up the same way that people rolled up posters or maps, into her duffel bag.

          Hyuga knocked at the door.

          “Come on you two, we need help loading all of the food,” Hyuga shouted.

          “Just a minute!” Kaji yelled back.

Kaji searched through the pockets of his pants, and then his shirt pocket, and then even in his boots.

          “I swear I just had them this morning,” Kaji muttered.

Misato sighed.

          “Are you sure they aren’t in your shorts pockets?” Misato asked.

          “Oh, yeah!” Kaji said, picking up his cargo shorts and shaking them upside-down. Nothing except a stray piece of lint fell from inside.

          “Shoot,” Kaji said. “I have no idea where they could be.”

          “Why don’t you ask Mari?” Misato offered.

          Kaji opened his mouth wide and threw down his shorts. He bounded towards Misato, who flinched away with a puzzled expression. Kaji grabbed Misato’s waist and brought her close enough to lay a long, wet kiss on her cheek. Misato spluttered.

          “That might just be the greatest idea I’ve ever heard, darling!” Kaji smiled. He skipped downstairs, chuckling at the faint embarrassed mutterings of Misato his ear caught as he left.

          Kaji strolled down the hallways. He ran into a commotion; Asuka was fighting with Toji over who got to carry Sakura when she got tired from their long walk. Sakura stood on the sidelines.

          Sakura caught his eye as he passed by— and wait, was that a  _ smirk _ that just flashed on her face? 

          Kaji blinked, and it was gone. Sakura’s attention was fully on Asuka and her brother now, her expression neutral, and Kaji thought that he must have just imagined that. He shook his head and kept walking.

          A short while later, Hyuga emerged from one of the bathrooms, two cardboard boxes labelled “fragile” shakily stacked in his hands. Kaji waved and called out to him. Hyuga shifted his boxes around so he could see Kaji, and for a split second, he swore that he saw Hyuga give him a bitter expression, but now, Hyuga was smiling widely at him and offering him a friendly greeting:

          “What’s up, Kaji? Have you and Misato finished packing upstairs?”

          Kaji rubbed the back of his head sheepishly.

          “Well, almost,” he replied. “We still have to package up the weapons and ammo.”

          Hyuga sighed, his lips curling downwards.

          “Please do try and be done before noon. We still have three rooms to go, and we need all of the help we can get down here,” Hyuga said. “Anyway, these are getting heavy, so see you later.”

Kaji mock-saluted at him, and then was on his way again. He had just passed the bathroom door when his foot kicked something, and it slid across the floor.

          “Huh?”

          Kaji followed to where the object had stopped; it was a knife. A very jagged and sturdy-looking one, with dark green cloth wrapped around its handle. It looked handmade.

          “Did anyone drop a knife?” Kaji called out.

          Kaji heard a bumping sound, and then a faint curse.

          “YES,” someone answered back, sounding very frustrated.

          Kensuke emerged from the supplies room, rubbing his head, and swiped the knife from his hands.

          “Are you okay?” Kaji asked.

          “Never better,” Kensuke drawled. “I hit my head on the edge of one of those stupid wooden cabinets.”

          “Did I surprise you?” Kaji questioned, stifling a smile— as to not seem rude.

          “No... Yes... No. Whatever,” Kensuke replied. He made to stuff the knife in his belt, and then froze. He looked at Kaji with an awkward smile.

          “You… didn’t happen to also find its sheath on the ground, did you?” Kensuke asked.

          Kaji shook his head.

          Fuck,” Kensuke swore.

          “I’m sure you will find it, though. Just retrace your steps!” Kaji said encouragingly. The glare Kensuke gave him was weaker than the ones Misato used to often affix on him, so he didn’t bat an eyelash.

          In his typical teenage way, Kensuke groaned and threw up his hands in defeat. He half-heartedly waved a goodbye to Kaji as he went the way he came, and once he passed Kaji, the smile that was threatening to tear up Kaji’s face finally sprung up like daisies after a rainstorm.

          Kaji arrived at the two bedrooms that were designated for the kids. He wasn’t sure which one was for the boys or girls, so he just guessed and pressed his ear next to the door on the left, hearing for his niece’s voice.

          “—I’m not fully sure that I could do that, but I could at least try it, for your sake.”

          Kaji scowled. This was the voice of Nerv’s alien test-subject boy. He kept his ear to the door, his curiosity piqued.

          “Thank you so much, Kaworu! I can’t believe that I might be able to see her again… it seems so surreal just thinking about it.”

          That was the boy— Shinji— that Misato gushed over. Kaji glanced behind himself to see if anyone was there. To his relief, the halls were empty.

          “Do you have anything of hers? A picture of her, maybe? Or something she gave to you?”

          Who was “her?” Who were they talking about? Kaji knew he was eavesdropping, but he wanted to burst through the door and ask them. Only the thought of being reprimanded by both Mari and Misato made him hold back.

          “When do you want to go? Tonight?” Shinji asked.

          “Sure. Should we bring Mari?” the alien answered.

          Kaji growled at the mention of his niece. Thinking about those two dragging his niece anywhere unsafe made his protective instincts flare up, and he was just about to twist the doorknob when—

          —He heard a giggle from the room across the hall. 

          A very familiar, high-pitched giggle.

          Kaji tiptoed away from the door. He went into the room across the hall, and there was Mari.

          With his sunglasses on her face.

          Mari laughed again, trying to stifle it by covering her mouth. On the windowsill was a small brown squirrel with shaggy fur and beady brown eyes that were almost cute. The squirrel squeaked at Mari. 

          Mari went into her pocket and took out a package of peanuts. She slowly slid one of them over to the animal with her finger, and after a few moments, the squirrel chomped up the nut with glee.

          “I can’t believe this,” Mari snorted.

          After finishing his nut, the squirrel looked at Mari expectantly. She gladly slid another peanut over, and then another, and then another.

          Soon, the squirrel was digging into a pile of nuts, his fluffy tail wagging in delight.

          “This is fucking awesome,” Mari whispered.

          “It sure is,” Kaji replied.

          Mari gasped and jumped three feet in the air. She put Kaji’s sunglasses on her head, and then whirled around to see him.

          “Kaji! You scared me, idiot!” Mari laughed, pushing his chest.

          “Even worse, I think I scared the squirrel away,” Kaji lamented.

          “Huh?”

          Mari turned around, and the animal was gone. She felt like crying.

          “Nooooo…. He was my friend,” Mari sniffed. She dramatically walked over to the window, and touched the uneaten peanuts with her fingertips.

          “He will be missed, but never forgotten…” Mari said.

          “Anyway, Mari, can I get my sunglasses back?” Kaji asked.

          “What sunglasses?” Mari asked, turning back to him.

          Unexpectedly, the glasses were gone from her forehead. Kaji staggered back in confusion.

          “Whoa?” Kaji said.

          “What’s wrong, uncle?” Mari smirked.

          Kaji looked to his niece, and sighed at her shit-eating grin.

          “Why must you be like this,” Kaji sighed.

          Mari laughed. “Like what?”

          “Where did you hide my sunglasses?”

          “Your sunglasses? Hmmmmm….” Mari trailed off, tapping her pointer finger on her chin. “I’m not sure I’ve seen something resembling your “sunglasses” in quite some time.”

          Kaji rolled his eyes.

          “Tell you what. If you can catch me in five minutes, I’ll give you back your sunglasses,” Mari grinned.

          “I don’t know if we have time for that, Mari,” Kaji started.

          “Oh, that’s too bad, then.” Mari fake-sighed. She shrugged. “If you can’t spare five minutes of your precious time, then I guess you’ll never see your sunglasses ever again~”

          “Okay, okay. I’ll do it,” Kaji acquiesced.

          Mari whooped and threw a fist into the air.

          “With one caveat,” Kaji continued.

          Mari dropped her hand, and raised an un-amused eyebrow at him.

“I know that you plan to go away with those boys, and leave us possibly for forever. If I win, then I want you to stay with the group— with me,” Kaji said.

          Mari’s eyebrows rose into her hairline.

          “No way,” Mari stuttered. She reached into her sweatshirt pocket for his sunglasses, and thrust them at him. “I can’t do that! The deal is off. Just take your sunglasses back.”

          Kaji pushed away her hand offering him his sunglasses.

          “I’m serious, Mari. I want you to stay with us,” Kaji said with a strained smile. “I want to give you the opportunity to win the ability to leave, because then… then I’ll be able to accept that you can handle yourself, and you won fair and square.”

          “I…” Mari trailed off, staring at her uncle with concerned eyes.

          “I haven’t seen you in years. God, I haven’t even— haven’t even barely talked to you, or learned about the person you’ve become. I don’t know anything about my own fucking niece, and that breaks my heart,” Kaji said. His eyes welled up with tears, and he blinked quickly to disperse them.

          “I’m sorry…” Mari said.

          “It’s not your fault, kiddo,” Kaji said, mussing up her hair. His voice was wet and shaky. “All of this shit was out of our control, I mean— goddamn.”

          Mari started crying too, and she scowled. Although she was only a few inches short of being his height, he kneeled in front of her, like he did when she was a child.

          “I want to know everything that’s happened to you. How you’ve survived, the stories about you being a damn good marksman, any boys you’ve liked— just, god,” Kaji’s voice cracked.

          Mari felt her throat clench. She cleared it, but it was all stuffed up inside.

          “Well, here’s something to start off with…” Mari began. She nervously shifted her weight between her legs and looked around the room, not holding eye contact with Kaji. “Um… something big about me… something you should know is that… uh…”

          Kaji waited for her to talk. Mari felt like screaming, but she managed to force out the words in her head:

          “Um, I’m a lesbian. I like girls.”

          Kaji froze. Nothing but his face moved, and it shifted expressions so fast that Mari couldn’t read them.

          Mari was terrified. She knew that her uncle was cool, but there was always the chance he could say this or that, or begin to hate her, or never want to talk to her again— anything could happen. Oh god why wasn’t he saying anything oh god oh god.

          “I… wow,” Kaji muttered.

          Mari’s thought process stopped on a dime, and all she could focus on now was her uncle. His voice, and his face, and she tried reading his expression, like she usually could, but this time he was uncharacteristically neutral, and it freaked her the fuck out, and she was about to panic again and ask for death when he spoke again.

          “That’s pretty cool. How long have you known?”

          Mari felt air woosh out of her lungs, and she felt ten pounds lighter. She smiled and finally looked him square in the eye.

          “Since I was eleven! I read about it on the internet. I’d always known I had some kind of feelings about girls, and I liked looking at their hair and their boobs and I knew it was my favorite thing ever when they complimented or touched me, but that was when I solidified my understanding of my sexuality,” Mari explained, rubbing the back of her head.

          “Did you tell anyone? Your mom or dad?” Kaji asked.

          Mari shook her head. “No, I was worried that they wouldn’t accept me, so I didn’t tell them. In hindsight, I really should have, but I suppose it doesn’t matter now… they’re probably dead anyway.”

          “Hey, don’t think like that, Mari. Remember? With the alien boy’s blood, you can bring anyone back to life, yeah?” Kaji smiled. “I’m sure you’ll find your parents, and you’ll be able to tell them someday.”

          Mari nodded, her lip trembling.

          Kaji patted her knee. Mari wiped off her tears with her sleeve and sniffed loudly.

          “You should get running. You’ll need to earn your chance to be on your own again, Mari,” Kaji said. “I’ll give you a ten second head start.”

          Mari steeled herself.

          “Okay, the time starts when I open the door. Ready, set, go!” Mari said, slamming the door open and flinging herself across the hall. Kaji shook his head, smiling, and counted the seconds on his watch.

          “Ten… nine… eight…”

          Mari went into the storage room, trying to find a place to hide.

          Under the blankets? Too obvious.

          Behind the door? Too risky.

          Out the window? Too dangerous.

          Mari tsked and headed down the hall.

          “Five, four, three…”

          Mari stopped in her tracks at the bathroom. She pulled herself through the closet and its hole, and then had a brilliant idea. She kicked a hole in the frail, decaying wall that was large enough for her to crawl through. The wood made a crunching sound as it caved in.

          Mari smirked, and then looked up at the obvious hole in the ceiling that her and Shinji had made previously.

          “Two… one… zero. Okay, it’s about time I head out,” Kaji said. He wiped off his pants as he stood up. He opened the door and peered outside at the dark hallway. “I believe that I heard her go this way… and then some sort of crunch?”

          Mari heard footsteps come down the hall. She halted her heavy breathing and crawled into the hole she’d made, and hid inside the temple’s wall. She pulled the crate that Shinji and her had used towards her, which blocked the view of the hole she’d just made.

          This was a gamble on her part. She knew she couldn’t effectively outrun Kaji in a small temple with few hallways, so she had to hide and hope he searched elsewhere.

          Furthermore, if he did come into the closet where she was hiding, hopefully he would believe that the sound she’d just made came from the hole overhead. He was tall enough that he didn’t necessarily need to use the crate to jump up there, and with luck, he would either jump up into the attic and search through there, or better yet, he wouldn’t chance jumping up onto the weak flooring of the attic, and would instead just head up to the attic by the stairs, giving her some more time.

          Mari flattened her body against the wall. Her knee hit something that seemed like a pipe, so she stayed perfectly still.

          If worst came to worst, she could always head further into the walls separating the temple and its framework, but with no lighting, she could get lost.

          Either way, she set herself up for a while of waiting, and sighed.

\---

          Shinji’s fingers clasped around the thin wooden pencil inside the tiniest pocket in his backpack. He held it softly, like it would snap in half in his hands if he wasn’t careful.

          The pencil reminded him a bit of Kaworu, to tell the truth. Its wrapping was space-themed, with miniscule planets and stars dotting its navy blue canvas.

          “That’s a pretty pencil,” Kaworu commented. “But, why did you take it out?”

          Shinji rolled the pencil through his fingers. It felt smooth to the touch.

          “It was hers. Rei’s,” Shinji explained.

          “Whose?” Kaworu asked.

          “The blue-haired girl from the museum. She got taken away by her sister. Do you remember her?” Shinji asked.

          “Hmm, yeah. I remember her.”

          Shinji handed the pencil over to Kaworu.

          “I want to see her. I need to make sure she’s okay,” Shinji said. “Please, Kaworu.”

          Kaworu blinked.

          “Wow, you really do seem passionate about meeting her again,” Kaworu commented. “She was your only friend in the beginning, correct?”

          Shinji nodded.

          Kaworu kissed his cheek, smiling. 

          “Okay, let’s go. We’re all packed up now, so go get Mari.”

          “Okay, see you in a bit,” Shinji replied, returning Kaworu’s kiss.

\----

          Mari’s heart pounded out of her chest. She stifled her uneven breathing by covering her mouth with her hand, and she gulped once she heard the patter of footsteps come to a stop right outside.

          Whoever was there didn’t seem privy to her location, as they stepped away from the closet door, and they started throwing the stall doors open.

          The door to the bathroom opened again. Mari’s brow furrowed—who was that?

          “Mari!” Kaworu’s voice called out.

          “Shit shit shit,” Mari whispered.

          The deep baritone voice of her uncle said something, and it was too muffled for her to make out exactly what he said, but from the tone, he seemed to be chatting with Kaworu.

          ‘God damn it. If Kaworu’s spidey-senses lead Kaji and him right to me, I’m going to be screwed!’ Mari thought. ‘Go away, Kaworu!’

          Kaworu laughed. Mari scowled, and scooted the crate closer to her. It was too damn dark for her to check out her watch and see how much time she had left, but it couldn’t be more than halfway through her time.

          ‘Piss off, Kaworu! Go and smooch Shinji!’ Mari thought, fuming.

          Two pairs of footsteps came right up to the closet door.

          With a small creak, the door swung open. Kaworu looked at the crate, the ceiling, and the place where he could feel where Mari was hiding.

          Kaworu turned his head to the side, puzzled. Kaji glanced skywards.

          “Whoa, what is that?” Kaji asked, pointing to the ceiling.”Is that a hole? Was that always there?”

          “It looks recently made,” Kaworu commented.

          “Jackpot.” Kaji smirked and rubbed his hands. He lifted himself upwards and threw his arms over the top of the wall, but he was a few inches too short. 

          Kaworu sat on the crate. He watched Kaji struggle with interest, and then offered some help:

          “Would you like to use this crate?”

          Mari almost held back a gasp.

          ‘Shit, fuck, KAWORU! DON’T SAY THAT! IF HE MOVES THE CRATE HE’LL SEE THE HOLE I’M IN, GOD DAMN IT!!’ Mari screamed internally. ‘UGH. Why can’t I just communicate telepathically to you. You’re a freaking alien. Why is this impossible.'

          “Nah, I’ll give it a few more tries. I’m stronger than I look, you know,” Kaji replied to Kaworu. Kaworu raised his brows, but stayed where he was.

          Kaji tried to use the walls as leverage to gain a few more centimeters. He almost successfully pulled himself up into the attic, but he slipped.

          Kaji huffed.

          “Again, you can use this crate,” Kaworu reminded him.

          Kaji scowled and rolled his eyes, turned away from Kaworu.

          “I’m not as old as I look, kid. I had martial arts training. I can do this without your help, alright? Sheesh,” Kaji answered.

          Mari stilled.

          ‘What was this bullshit?’ Mari held back a laugh. ‘Is Kaworu inadvertently helping me by annoying my uncle and offering to help him? This is so funny!!’

          Kaworu examined his nails for any dirt, and Kaji kept fruitlessly trying to get into the attic’s secret passageway.

          “I could lift you up if you want. Just make you float right up there like you’re on a cloud, easy peasy,” Kaworu told Kaji.

          Kaji took a deep breath in, trying not to flip out in frustration.

          “I. Am. Fine.”

          “You sure?” Kaworu asked.

          “Absolutely,” Kaji snarled. He checked his watch, and then groaned. “I’ve only got one minute left.”

          “Do you want me to tell you where she is?” Kaworu asked.

          Mari’s stomach dropped a hundred feet—like if a penny from a child’s pocket had plummeted to the ground from atop a skyscraper, and the penny was hurtling to the earth so fast that it would catch fire mid-air and be burnt into a crisp even before it touched the ground.

          “NO, I am fine. Again, as I said, I am perfectly fine without your help. I’m going to run up and see where she’s hiding, so good-bye,” Kaji forced out through clenched teeth. 

          “Okay. Well, I’ll be here,” Kaworu replied.

          Kaji bolted out of the bathroom, brushing off Kaworu’s mocking wave.

          Mari kept silent. She didn’t want for Kaji to come back if Kaworu said something about her being there, but inside she relaxed. If there was only a minute left, then she was almost in the clear. This was almost too easy!

          In the meantime, Mari tried again to talk to Kaworu through their brains.

          ‘I wonder if I can make some sort of connection? If I can trigger him to open a channel through our minds, then maybe we could talk to each other even without opening our mouths! That would be amazing!’ Mari thought. She smiled like a cat, and then got to work.

          Mari thought of Kaworu sitting right in front of her. She imagined pushing images of her, Kaworu, and Shinji into Kaworu’s mind. When images of them laughing together or of Kaworu and Shinji kissing didn’t do anything, she huffed, concentrated so hard that her head hurt, and then thought of Kaworu and Shinji making out with each other, and taking off each other’s clothes, and rubbing their hands all over their naked bodies, and Shinji squirming and moaning and—

          “What the hell?” Kaworu stood up. It felt for a second that he was thinking of things that weren’t his own thoughts, and he blushed.

          ‘Is there someone in there?’ Kaworu asked inside his head.

          ‘Ayyyyy lmao,’ Mari’s voice called back.

          Kaworu stumbled and fell onto the ground.

          From upstairs, Kaji asked if he was okay, and Kaworu called up to tell him he was.

          ‘How are you sending me messages inside my brain? It’s like you’re speaking, and I can hear your voice, but my ears aren’t hearing anything outside,’ Kaworu said.

          ‘Yeah, it feels kinda weird. Kinda tingly, I guess. I’m sure we’ll get used to it,’ Mari replied.

          ‘Where are you?’ Kaworu asked, looking all around.

          ‘I’m hiding from my uncle less than two feet away from where you are,’ Mari answered.

          Kaworu surveyed the room.

          “But, I don’t see you anywhere,” Kaworu said out loud.

          “Huh?” Kaji yelled. “Did you say something, Tabris?"

          “Oh, no, sorry. Just… uh… stubbed my toe. Ow!” Kaworu said back. “Also it’s Kaworu, not Tabris.”

          Kaji shrugged and kept searching the closets and boxes in the attic. Misato came back upstairs to join him again, and they talked together for a little while.

          ‘I know this is kinda a strange question, but has it been a minute since Kaji left the room?’ Mari asked Kaworu.

          ‘Yes. It’s been one minute and twenty-four seconds,’ Kaworu replied. ‘Why?’

          Mari shoved the crate away. It slid on the floor with its heavy weight, and almost got snagged on a loose floorboard, but Mari finally got enough space to crawl out of the hole.

          “Wassup, bitch!?” Mari asked. The conversation halted upstairs, but Mari paid it no mind.

          “Oh, hello,” Kaworu replied.

          Mari kicked the crate to the corner of the room. 

          “Did you make that hole?” Kaworu asked.

          “Yeah,” Mari replied, blowing a hair out of her face. “I had to hide somewhere so... I improvised! I sat there, hoping my uncle didn’t find me. That wouldn't have been good.”

          “Why not?” Kaworu questioned.

          “Yeah, why not?” Another voice asked as well.

          Mari jumped and whirled around to face her uncle, who had quietly climbed down the hole and back into the closet. She knew she was in arm's reach, and she prayed that her time to run had run out already.

          Kaji reached out to grab her, and Mari flattened her body against the wall and bared her fangs at him like a wild coyote.

          “I found you, Mari,” Kaji laughed. “Were you really in that hole over there? That’s kind of genius, actually, to fake me out with two different holes.”

          “Thank you. I’m glad you can recognize my strategy,” Mari answered, stalling for time. “It was hastily made, but I’m glad it did the trick.

Mari and her uncle were now just circling each other. Like two wrestlers before a brawl, their eyes didn’t leave each other’s, and their stances were defensive until the moment one of them decided to strike.

          Kaworu stood awkwardly in the corner of the room, observing them. Their current behaviors were quite irrational and perplexing. 

          “Is this a human ritual I’m not familiar with?” he asked.

          Kaji feinted a lunge at Mari, and she flinched back and attempted to retaliate, but Kaji moved away.

          “Why are you two fighting? This does not seem like the proper time and place to do so. A space as cramped as this is not an optimal area to battle, and we are on a time crunch, as Misato wants all of us to be packed up before we leave today, and…”

          Kaworu trailed off when he realized none of them were listening to him. He crossed his arms, and then walked out to find Shinji.

          “I’m sorry that your best attempts at hiding from me didn’t work out,” Kaji taunted her. “Looks like you’ll have to abandon your friends and stay with us.”

          Mari began to sweat.

‘How long do I have until time’s up? Will I have a chance to try and abscond from this situation? What is my best course of action? And, shit! Where did Kaworu go? Why didn’t I explain to him what was happening—he could have teleported me somewhere else!'

          While Mari was occupied with her inner turmoil, Kaji took the chance to pin her to the wall. Mari floundered in his grasp, but Kaji pinned his whole body weight on her to keep her from moving.

          “Guess what?” Kaji whispered in her ear.

          Mari swallowed.

          This was it. She was going to fail! She was going to fucking lose her chance to be with her best friends and explore the world like she used to, all because she got cocky and emerged from her hiding place too soon. Goddamn it!

          Mari glared at her uncle.

          ‘Did he know I was there? Or somewhere around?’ Mari thought. ‘Is that why he said he only had a minute left? What a massive bluff that I fell for. Damn! I’m a fucking idiot!’

          Mari pushed her uncle’s arms away.

          “The time’s been up for a while now. Good job, Mari,” Kaji said.

          Mari’s jaw dropped, and her defensive stance shifted into its relaxed, normal one.

          “Huh?” she said.

          “My watch beeped while I was talking with Misato. I just wanted to scare you a bit, haha! ...Mari, are you okay? Are you seriously crying?” Kaji kneeled down to see his niece’s scared face.

          Mari wiped off her face, and when she held her hand up to her face, her fingers were wet. She hadn’t even realized she had started crying.

          “You JERK!” Mari yelled, hiding her face in her hands. She sniffed. “I really thought I had messed everything up, and I was never going to go with Kaworu and Shinji!”

          “Mari, I’m sorry,” Kaji chuckled uncomfortably. “I was just trying to joke around, okay kid?”

          Mari sighed.

          “That was mean,” she said.

          “I know. I’m sorry,” Kaji said.

          “Does that mean that I can go with Kaworu and Shinji?” Mari asked.

          “Of course, honey,” Kaji smiled. “Come here. I think you need a hug.”

          Mari flew into his arms and buried her head in her uncle’s chest. She muttered nonsense (and a few insults) to calm herself down, and then swatted her uncle’s face with her ponytails.

          “Take that!” Mari giggled.

          “Hey, watch out with those,” Kaji joked.

          Mari stepped back, and then got embarrassed for herself at crying like that.

          She was supposed to be the cool kid. Feelings were for chumps, and she had an image to protect. Or whatever.

          “Anyway, I’m going to go find Kaworu and Shinji… and stuff… yeah, bye,” Mari stuttered, heading out of the room and shooting her uncle a timid wink and finger guns.

          “Yep. See you later, Mari. I love you,” Kaji replied.

          “Yeah, me too! I mean... fuck, love you too, Kaji!” Mari called back, hesitantly shutting the door behind her.

          Once outside, she scratched her head and tried not to think about what had just happened.

          ‘How embarrassing...’ Mari thought.

          ‘I dunno, I thought that was cute,’ Kaworu commented from inside her head.

          ‘Oh fuck off, dude,’ Mari replied, holding back a smile. 

          She put her hands in her pockets. They clinked on Kaji's sunglasses, and she remembered that she had forgotten to give them back.

          'Oh well,' she thought. "Guess these are mine now.'


	26. Shinji, Kaworu, and Mari Leave the Nest And Jump into the Lion's Den

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Good ol' Lillith! ;^)

          Once Kaworu, Mari, and Shinji were packed up and ready to go, Misato hugged all of them with gusto.

          “Make sure to visit us soon! We all want to know if you’re healthy out there!” Misato said, “and you’d better take care of my Shinji!” Misato pointed her finger at Kaworu and Mari.

          “Absolutely, miss!” Mari saluted. She zipped up her pink-and-white turtleneck-style jacket and slung her backpack over her shoulders.

          “We will,” Kaworu replied. “Oh, and I should give you this.”

          Kaworu fished out of his knapsack a wooden box. He opened it with a ‘clack,’ and showed Misato that it was stuffed full of vials of his blood.

          “In case anybody gets bitten, or you find another lurker you know…” Kaworu explained.

          Misato slowly took the box from his hands. “Kaworu, you shouldn’t have…”

          Kaworu smiled.

          “I want to make sure you all are safe and happy in my absence,” he said.

          Shoving the box under her armpit, Misato threw her arms around Kaworu and squeezed him hard—Kaworu seeing nothing but darkness as his face was jammed into her breasts. After a moment of tolerating the gesture (for long enough to not seem impolite), Kaworu stepped back with a cough and gave Misato a shaky smile. Misato shook his hand.

          “Can I get a hug, too?” Mari asked Misato, gazing up at her with angel eyes.

          “Pshh, why not!” Misato laughed. She gave Mari the same treatment, and unlike Kaworu, Mari returned the hug twice-fold and snuggled her face into Misato’s chest.

          “So soft…” Mari sighed.

          Misato released Mari, who reluctantly dropped her arms from around the older woman. Misato walked up to Shinji and offered him a hug as well. He threw down his bag and accepted it.

          Misato brushed her hands through Shinji’s hair. She was even compelled to plant a kiss on top of his head, because she did love him like a son.

          When Shinji tore away from her, it felt like a piece had been torn away from her heart, and Misato fought back tears.

          “We should get going,” Kaworu said.

          The three kids packed up their things and loaded their weapons, and then began to leave.

          “Stay safe!” Misato yelled at them as they started walking away.

          “Stay alert!” Aoba yelled. “Always!”

          “Don’t get into trouble!” Hyuga said.

          “Don’t get eaten!” Sakura squealed, cupping her hands around her mouth so that the sound carried farther.

          “Don’t die!” Kensuke screamed at them.

          “Come back soon!” Hikari yelled.

          “—but not too soon!” Asuka yelled with a smirk.

          Hikari punched her arm, and she laughed with a wince.

          “I’m proud of you, Mari!” Kaji yelled, making Mari turn around. 

          Mari’s cheeks flushed, and she screamed back at him to shut up. Kaji grinned.

          Once they were out of sight from the temple, and the voices of the other group had faded away, Kaworu spoke:

          “Take out Rei’s pencil, Shinji.”

          Shinji retrieved his keepsake, and Kaworu laid his hands on it as well.

          “You should touch it, too, Mari,” Kaworu said.

          “Oh! All right,” Mari replied, her fingertips brushing the pink eraser.

          “Let’s go,” Kaworu said.

          The world spun around them. Shinji felt weightless for a second, and then the brights colors around him transitioned into dull, metallic ones. Gravity returned to the three children, and they plopped onto their feet.

          Wherever they were, it was quite dark. Shinji reached his hand forward and hit a wall. He moved his hands around, and they kept hitting walls, which meant they were enclosed inside a building.

          A quite  _ unfamiliar _ building.

          Within two seconds, Kaworu had turned on his body-lights. They scanned around the room for any lurkers or humans.

          There was nobody.

          The door to the room opened, and all three of the kids trained their eyes on the shadow entering the room.

          They caught a flash of blue hair, and then red eyes, and finally a mouth opened wide in shock. A small cotton-candy blue lollipop —one that one might get at a dentist or hair salon— fell onto the ground.

          “What?” Rei asked, eyes moving all over the three of them, her mouth set in a puzzled frown. “What are you guys doing here? How did you  _ get  _ here?”

          Footsteps came from behind Rei, and she shut the door behind her.

          “Uhh, you guys should probably hide,” Rei said.

          “Why?” Shinji asked.

          “Lilith… likes to overreact. Especially to intruders, and people like that… she’s kinda…” Rei looked a bit embarrassed. “Paranoid.”

          “Where do we hide?” Shinji asked.

          Rei looked around the room.

          “There’s some boxes over there,” Rei said, gesturing to a pile of crates that was stacked in the corner of the room. Many of them were misshapen, kicked in, or too small for a human to fit into, but there was a few boxes that were quite large.

          Mari jumped into a crate, and Kaworu and Shinji jumped into another. Not a minute later, a knock came from the door, and Rei sighed.

          “Rei!” Lillith’s voice called out. “Sis! You getting changed in there or something?!”

          “Yep, I totally am,” Rei called back, a faint smile appearing on her face.

          From a hole in the box Shinji was hiding in, he could see her expression. Frankly, he was amazed to see Rei emote like that —it was a new sight.

          “Oh… do you need help putting anything on?!” Lillith yelled, pressing her face to the door. 

          Rei held back a laugh.

          “No, I’m fine! I’ll be out in a minute!” Rei said.

          Lillith hmphed. She sat down on the floor and stuck her fingers underneath the door like a cat.

          “Oh, yeah. Ramiel brought back a chicken!” Lillith informed Rei.

          “Cool,” Rei said, folding in the tops of the boxes that the other kids were hiding in, so they were better concealed from view.

          “Do you wanna eat chicken?!” Lillith yelled.

          “I’m a vegetarian, sis! Remember??” Rei screamed back, shaking her head.

          Rei walked to the door and opened it up.

          “Oh yeah,” Lillith giggled. She stepped inside the room and looked her little sister head to toe.

          “Huh? You’re wearing the same clothes that you were wearing earlier!” Lillith commented.

          “Oh!” Rei gulped. “Um… I had to take off my bra.”

          Lillith looked at Rei with confusion.

          “I thought you didn’t wear bras,” Lillith replied, narrowing her eyes at Rei.

          Rei spluttered.

          “Um… it’s kinda… it’s because… well, you see…” Rei stammered.

          Lillith crossed her arms.

          “Are you hiding something from me?” she asked matter-of-factly.

          “No, no way! It’s just that… um…” Rei trailed off.

          Lillith surveyed the room and then gave Rei a suspicious glare.

          “You didn’t bring back another bunny, did you, sis?” Lillith questioned.

          Rei couldn’t help but sneak a glance behind her. Lillith, perceptive as ever, followed her gaze.

          “Really? That’s the second time this week!” Lillith admonished Rei, hitting her gently on the noggin. “You know Sachiel would try and eat it if he ever discovered it… I know how much you want to keep a pet, but…”

          His legs cramping up, Shinji shifted a bit. To his horror, the sound of him moving was easily audible in Rei’s and Lillith’s lapse in conversation, and Lillith didn’t move her eyes away from that spot.

          “What’s in there?... or, who’s in there….” Lillith growled. Her hair seemed to bristle up like a threatened animal’s, and Rei hastened to try and calm her down.

          “Lillith, it’s alright! It’s just… I found a few abandoned dogs outside, and so I brought them here…” Rei lied.

          To dispell Lillith’s disbelieving look—complete with a raised eyebrow—Rei concluded with: “they were freezing… I could see them shiver… and they whined… they were so frightened— I had to help them.”

          “We can’t keep them,” Lillith said. She almost seemed sad after she said that.

          “I know, I know. I just wanted to let them warm up inside and get something to eat. I’ll release them once they’re fed,” Rei compromised.

          Lillith tapped her chin, thinking.

          “That should be alright,” she said, hands resting on her hips.

          Rei smiled, relieved, and felt like jumping for joy.

          “I’ll just have to do one thing, though,” Lillith added.

          Rei’s heart sank. Her expression molded into concern.

          “Oh, don’t look at me like that, sister!” Lillith grinned. She flicked Rei’s nose.

          Lillith sauntered over to the pile of crates and lifted her foot, preparing a kick.

          “Wait, what are you doing!?” Rei asked, running over to tug on her sister’s arm.

          “I just gotta make sure that the dogs are really in there,” Lillith shrugged. “Relax, sis, I’m not going to hurt them.”

          Lillith leveled a kick at the crate that Shinji and Kaworu sat in. On command, Kaworu began barking like a dog, and then Shinji joined in—feeling a bit silly.

          “See, there’s dogs in there!” Rei said.

          “Hm… sure does sound like it,” Lillith conceded.

          “Let’s go to dinner already! I’m starving for some carrots.” Rei coaxed her sister into stepping away from the crates.

          “Yeah, yeah, whatever,” Lillith smiled.

          However, out-of-the-blue, Lillith decided to kick Mari’s crate, and Mari gasped.

          Lillith stilled, her smile gone.

          “That didn’t sound like a dog…” Lillith mumbled.

          “Bark… bark?” Mari tried, silently reaching for her knife.

          Lillith flipped Mari’s crate over, and Mari somersaulted out. Mari lunged at Lillith and held her knife to her throat; yet, Lillith countered by holding her gun to Mari’s head.

          Mari whistled.

          “Damn, you’re fast…” Mari said, not holding back how impressed she was.

          Mari felt Lillith laugh.

          Lillith craned her neck backwards to stare at Mari with her bright scarlet eyes. Mari blinked, and she was trapped to the wall with the barrel of a gun jabbing into her stomach.

          “Move, and I’ll kill you,” Lillith warned.

          Mari dropped her knife and breathed out. She put her hands up in surrender, and a smile creeped back onto Lillith’s face.

          “Lillith, stop. I know her—we both know her—put down your gun,” Rei sighed.

          “Huh?” Lillith glanced back at her sister. “We know her?”

          “She was there with Kaworu and Shinji… at the gas station? Before we left the city?” Rei reminded her sister.

          Lillith hummed.

          “I guess she does look a bit familiar,” Lillith commented. She prodded Mari again with her gun. “Where are your friends, huh? Punk.”

          “How old are you?” Mari asked Lillith, blinking slowly at her with soft eyes. She looked Lillith up and down.

          Lillith glared daggers at her.

          “She’s seventeen,” Rei answered.

          “Rei!” Lillith turned towards her little sister. Rei shrugged.

          “Nice,” Mari said. “Hey, Lillith, you’re kinda hot. You got a boyfriend?”

          Lillith made a strangled noise.

          “I’ll take that as a no…” Mari smirked.

          “It’s not a yes or no!” Lillith scowled. “It wasn’t an answer at all! And, anyway, I’m too old for you, little girl.”

          “Ouch!” Mari placed her hands over her heart in mock-hurt.

          “Besides, isn’t my younger sis more your age?” Lillith said hesitantly, looking to her sister and Mari in succession, trying to set her sister up.

          Rei rolled her eyes.

          “Lillith, really. I’ve told you this before. I’m asexual,” Rei said.

          Lillith tilted her head, and then recognition crossed her face. 

          “Wow! That’s right!” Lillith said, her mouth opened in an o-shape.

          “By the way, the two boys that were with her are here too,” Rei said.

          After a second, Lillith realized what Rei had said, and she whirled around to her younger sister.

          “What?! Where are they?” Lillith asked.

          “You can come out now,” Rei told Shinji and Kaworu.

          “Well, I guess that’s our cue,” Kaworu said, standing up.

          “Wait!” Shinji whispered. “Maybe we should get up slowly so that she doesn’t shoot us…”

          Kaworu pulled Shinji up, despite his protests.

          “Shit…” Lillith said, grimacing. “You weren’t kidding.”

          “Are you mad?” Rei asked.

          Lillith was silent for a minute. She brushed her layered diamond-white hair with her fingers, and then cracked her neck.

          “No, I’m fine. I… just was excited to see the puppies,” Lillith revealed, her pale cheeks tinged pink.

          “Awww,” Rei said.

          “Awww,” Mari echoed.

          “Oi, shut up!” Lillith snapped, pointing her gun at Mari’s face.

          “Hey, now, Rei said it too,” Mari grinned. “Why are you only mad at me, hm?”

          Lillith ignored Mari. 

          “How did you find this place,” Lillith asked them.

          Shinji held out his pencil.

          Lillith glanced at it, and then looked at Shinji like he was crazy.

          “It’s… a pencil? Ohhhkay…?” Lillith said.

          “Hey, that’s my pencil!” Rei smiled. “You kept it all this time?”

          Shinji nodded. Lillith took out another pistol and pointed both of her guns at the three kids.

          “Despicable! You stole my sister’s pencil?!” Lillith yelled, her trigger finger twitching with anticipation.

          “She gave it to me, and that’s how we found you all,” Shinji explained. He took a step forward, but a warning shot to just an inch before his shoe made him freeze.

          Kaworu hastened to push Shinji behind him, and he raised a protective barrier to shield them from any harm.

          “Whoa, what’s that?” Rei asked.

          Lillith tried to punch the field of energy away, but it zapped her when she got too close.

          “Ouch! Fuck!” Lillith swore, blowing on her hand.

          Shinji reached a hand out to try and touch it himself, but Kaworu stopped him.

          “That would be unwise, Shinji. It might hurt you, too,” Kaworu said.

          “Huh?” Shinji asked. “But isn’t it just a forcefield?”

          Kaworu hemmed and hawed, thinking about how to explain his AT Field in the best way possible.

          “This is my AT Field… it’s… um… a physical manifestation of loneliness and enmity towards others… and people who have harmed me,” Kaworu attempted to clarify. “It’s a barrier that one can only make if they’ve, at some point in their life, wanted all their ties from humanity to be severed indefinitely.”

          “So it’s just another alien thing?” Mari asked, yawning.

          “Alien?!” Lillith yelled.

          “Not… exactly. This is hard to explain. Basically, any lifeform with complex thought can create their own AT Field. They just would have to have suffered immensely, have had resentment towards others, have been traumatized in some way or another…”

          “So humans could make their own AT Field?” Mari asked. “Ooh, I wanna make a badass orange shield too!”

          Kaworu shifted from foot to foot.

          “It’s… harder than it looks to create one. Firstly, you must summon forth all of your feelings of anger towards people, then connect yourself to a time in your life that you’ve wished to be isolated from all of the world, and finally you have to… almost like… accept, even just for a while, that you wish to be separated from every other human being in the world,” Kaworu said.

          “Wow, sounds depressing,” Mari commented. “I’m not sure I could make one…”

          “That’s probably for the best,” Kaworu replied, a bead of sweat running down his face.

          The door slammed open, and everyone inside (sans Lillith) jumped.

          “YO, the chicken’s getting… cold…” Ramiel, a short teenage guy with a square-like head, said. His hands were stuffed inside his shiny blue leather jacket, but they dropped to his sides.

          Sachiel, a lanky teenage guy dressed in all black, entered the room behind him. He was silent, but in a flash he had his gun trained on the three kids.

          “Who the hell are you all? Have you come to rob us?” Ramiel asked, brandishing his own weapon of choice: a baseball bat with nails hammered into it.

          “Do we have permission to kill them, Lillith?” Sachiel asked.

          Lillith stood silently for a moment, relishing in the tension and scared faces in the room. Finally, she relented.

          “Nope, they’re friends of Rei’s.”

          Sachiel and Ramiel lowered their weapons and stared at them like they had grown three heads.

          “Rei has friends?” Ramiel joked, snorting out a laugh.

          Mari felt her knife slide out of her hands, and before she knew it, Lillith had it pressed to Ramiel’s jugular.

          “Ouch, yikes! I was just kidding, just kidding!” Ramiel stammered.

          “Remember this well,” Lillith ordered, her eyes darkening into a swirling pool of soot that seemed to want to swirl out of her irises and choke the life out of the man in front of her.

          “Never. Make. Fun. Of. My. Darling. Little. Sister. You are a mere bug compared to her. If you ever dare to make fun of her again, next time, it’ll be on your deathbed,” Lillith promised.

          “But—”

          “I don’t care if we’ve known each other since elementary school. I don’t give a shit about you both, and you both have had that drilled in your head since the day I’ve allowed you to accompany me, so don’t you fucking  _ dare  _ get any funny ideas. Who’s the leader here, huh?” Lillith asked, her expression blank.

          “You are, Lady Lillith,” Sachiel said.

          “You are, Madam,” Ramiel answered.

          “Good,” Lillith smiled sickly-sweetly. “Now, if you would be so kind as to get the meal ready for all of our guests.”

          Lillith shooed the two men out of the room with a wave of her hand.

          “Wow…” Mari said. “I have mad respect for you, girl.”

          Lillith glared at her.

          “Don’t think that we are friends,” Lillith said. “It is only because of your relation to Rei that you are welcome here, and not killed on the spot.”

          “Roger that!” Mari replied.

          Lillith shook her head and threw Mari’s knife back at her. Mari caught it easily.

          “Why do those guys follow you like that?” Shinji asked, curiosity overcoming his hesitance to offend this dangerous woman—who was, incredibly, the older sister of Rei—and for a second, he regretted even asking.

          Lillith flipped her hair over her shoulder, looking pleased that he even asked. Shinji’s shoulders relaxed.

          “They’ve been my lackeys since we were little kids. Without me, they would have been bullied in school, and nowadays, they’d be dead without me to protect them,” Lillith said. “They’d be nothing!"

          A glint appeared in Lillith’s eye, and her lips curled upwards in a devilish way.

          “You know, sometimes I like to remind them of their place by “almost” letting them die. My favorite way is by letting a lurker get too close, and I _love_ seeing the pure terror in their face as they watch their life flash before them… and when they’ve finally realized that they are helpless to save themselves… only then do I shoot!” Lillith giggled. “It’s such a fun little game!”

          Mari couldn’t hold back a ‘holy shit.’

          Kaworu stepped further away from Lillith, dragging Shinji with him.

          Even Rei looked unnerved.

          “Anyway, I’ll see you guys in the foyer! It’s downstairs and to the right! Oh—and there’s a bathroom in the second door on the left if you need it,” Lillith cooed. “Let’s go, sister darling!”

          Rei accepted the arm around hers and walked with her unhinged sister down the stairs.

          For a long moment, the room was quiet. Kaworu finally let his AT Field slip away. Shinji pressed a kiss to Kaworu’s neck, and Kaworu felt loads better.

          After a solid minute had past, Mari cleared her throat.

          “I’m just gonna say it, boys. Here it goes."

          Mari paused for dramatic effect.

          "Wow, she’s hot.”

          “And really fucking scary,” Shinji interjected.

          “Yeah, and still hot.”

          “And extremely terrifying and dangerous and possibly detrimental to the safety of us all,” Kaworu scowled.

          “I can see what you mean, and I totally agree. A hundred percent. Just, let me say that she is smokin’ hot,” Mari laughed. “I’d let her step on me.”

          “She’d probably stomp on your windpipe and try to break your neck,” Kaworu commented.

          “Fair enough,” Mari said.

          Mari led the way down the stairs, and the boys followed her.


	27. Mushroom Soup

          “Ramiel, get the silverware! We’re not eating this with our hands, idiot,” Lillith shouted, her voice reverberating in the empty and spacious mansion they seemed to be in.

          All of them circled by a crackling fire. Sachiel and Ramiel slowly spun around the featherless chicken on a wooden spitroast, and the fire crackled and hissed.

          Shinji shivered as his legs touched the cold stone floor. The air was nice and toasty, but the smoke made by the fire permeated the air, and he and Kaworu were unfortunately sitting to where the wind was blowing, so the ash flew towards them, stung their eyes, and made them cough.

          “Are you okay??” Mari asked, seeing the gray smoke fly at her friends. “Do you want to switch places with me?”

          Kaworu hacked another cough, and Shinji tried breathing through his shirtsleeve.

          “Oh, goddamn it. Ramiel, the window,” Lillith said.

          “What?” Ramiel asked.

          “You’re standing right next to the window! Fucking close it, you imbecile!” Lillith heaved a sigh of frustration.

          “Yes, m’am.”

          Ramiel complied, and the draft in the room was gone. Lillith smiled.

          “Do you want the legs, m’am?” Sachiel asked Lillith.

          “Oh, Sachiel! Why yes, thank you!” Lillith chirped, placing a hand on her chest for dramatic effect.

          Sachiel dug through his pocket and pulled out a switchblade. He cut through the chicken meat with deft strokes, and presented Lillith with her drumsticks. She clapped her hands.

          “I’m so pleased you remembered my favorite part of the chicken, Sachiel~” Lillith hummed, not waiting for everyone else to be served before taking her first bites.

          Ramiel turned to Kaworu and Shinji.

          “Would you like some chicken?” Ramiel asked.

          “Um… sure,” Shinji replied.

          “Any particular part of the bird you prefer?” Ramiel asked, eyeing Lillith as she licked the chicken grease off of her fingers.

          Shinji hesitated to reply, feeling this situation was quite… too... awkward. Nobody was talking—just stealing glances at each other and looking away. He felt like sighing.

          Back to the question: Shinji actually liked the drumsticks the best, but of course he couldn’t say that. Lillith had already gobbled them up, and who knows how these people would react? They would probably take offense.

          In the end, Shinji shrugged. Ramiel sliced off a few pieces of chicken from all parts (i.e. both white and dark) of the meat, and Shinji mumbled to him, “thank you,” when he handed the pieces over.

          Kaworu refused any chicken, saying he wasn’t hungry. Mari threw him a look, but didn’t comment. She took a big chunk of the breasts for her own.

          “Oi, where is Rei’s dinner?” Lillith asked her two companions. They looked at each other and their faces dropped.

          Ramiel jumped and stammered out a hasty apology, flustered.

          Sachiel sank to his knees and promised that he was never going to forget again to make food for the mistress’ sister.

          Lillith sneered at them and rolled her eyes.

          “Whatever, you two suck,” Lillith said. “I’ll make you some soup, dear sister of mine.”

          “What kind of soup?” Rei asked, picking at a thread in her jeans.

          “Carrot soup,” Lillith answered. “That’s all we’ve got.”

          Rei pouted.

          “I’m sick of carrot soup,” Rei muttered.

          “Then, what would you like, sis?” Lillith asked. “I could go out and get some berries… or some mushrooms… or, ooh! You could try some tree bark!”

          “I hope you’re kidding,” Rei deadpanned.

          “Okay, I admit I was joking about the tree bark,” Lillith laughed. “But, those are really the only options you have for dinner… I’m sorry, but there’s slim pickings until we find somewhere with some fruits and vegetables.”

          “I want tofu.” Rei sat back and puffed out her cheeks like a blowfish.

          “Tofu??” Lillith snorted. “You want tofu?? That’s so cute, sis.”

          Rei threw a pebble at her. Lillith tried to pounce playfully on her, but Rei batted her away.

          “Mushrooms kind of… taste like tofu?” Sachiel supplied, his sentence almost coming out like a question. “They’re squishy like tofu, too.”

          “I guess,” Rei said.

          Lillith stood up and brushed off her pants.

          “Okay sis! Me, Ramiel, and Sachiel are going to go outside and find tons of mushrooms for you to eat so that you don’t go hungry tonight!” Lillith smiled.

          When Ramiel and Sachiel began to complain about how dark it was outside, and how much they didn’t want to go, Lillith held up a finger to shush them.

          “I’ll even have these lugs here taste-test each mushroom we bring back to make sure none are poisonous,” Lillith said, pointing a thumb at the two men behind her.

          “Hey, Lillith!? You’re joking, right?”

          “M’am, I’m not sure that’s wise…”

          Lillith giggled.

          “See you guys in a bit!” Lillith winked.

          The three older teenagers fled the room.

\----

          Rei showed them into a bedroom covered in dust. She toed off her shoes and socks and laid on the spacious bed; its springs creaked from years of disuse. Her stomach growled, and she looked at the other three kids.

          “You might as well come up here and make yourself comfortable. They’re not going to be back for another few hours, I estimate,” Rei sighed.

          Shinji and Mari hopped onto the bed. Kaworu laid down on Shinji’s stomach, and hummed when Shinji began playing with his hair.

          “How are you feeling, Rei?” Shinji asked.

          “Hungry.” Rei stuck out her tongue.

          Mari reached for Shinji’s bag, and she pulled out the first food item she found: a package of peanut butter cookies.

          “Here you go,” Mari said, throwing it in Rei’s general direction.

          As Rei slowly reached out a hand to grab it, the cookies hit her in the face.

          “Thanks,” Rei smiled, finally catching it.

          As Rei tore into the cookies, she looked at the three of them thoughtfully. With her mouth full of crumbs, she spoke: “I asked this before, but you guys weren’t able to answer me. How did you guys get here?”

          “It’s… a long story,” Shinji said, offering up a weak smile. “It all starts with how Kaworu here is an alien.”

          Shinji nudged Kaworu to prove his point. Kaworu nodded, and Shinji felt it on his stomach.

          “An alien?” Rei asked. Unlike Lillith, she didn’t seem surprised at all; she just kept munching. “I think you said that before.”

          “Yeah, and he has other powers besides his forcefield—” Mari began.

          “AT Field,” Kaworu interjected.

          “—like teleportation, and lighting up like a candle, and bringing people back from the dead, and making fish and water appear out of nowhere like a fucking aquarium—” Mari continued.

          “Wait, what was that?” Rei’s eyes widened.

           Mari stopped talking.

          “He can… make fish and water?” Mari repeated, puzzled.

          Rei rolled her eyes in a way that reminded everyone of her older sister.

          “No, you said that he could ‘bring people back from the dead?’ What do you mean?” Rei asked.

          “Well, I mean… I guess Kaworu can only make un-dead people, or lurkers, alive again. He can’t bring dead-dead people back to life… right?” Mari looked towards Kaworu for confirmation.

          Kaworu thought for a moment, then he shrugged.

          “I’ve never tried. I presume it’s pretty unlikely, though. Especially if they’ve been dead for a while,” Kaworu answered.

          “That’s too bad.” Rei’s shoulders slumped.

          Kaworu studied her expression.

          “You seem dejected by that news. Were you hoping to resurrect somebody in particular?” Kaworu asked.

          Rei reached under her and into a shelf that opened on the side of the bed. She brought out a water bottle and drank half of it in one go.

          “Man, do baked goods make me thirsty,” Rei commented, wiping off her mouth.

          Kaworu raised an eyebrow at her, silently requesting for her to answer his question. Rei looked away.

          “I wondered if you could bring my mother back to life, but it seems that’s impossible,” Rei replied, frowning.

          “How do you know that?” Shinji asked. “She could still be alive, or a lurker.”

          "I found her dead body,” Rei deadpanned, taking another sip of water.

          Rei finished her drink off and crumpled it onto the floor. It was then that she realized that she hadn’t offered any of them a drink.

          “I’ll go get some water for you guys,” Rei frowned, leaving the room without a backwards glance, her previous cheeriness gone.

          Kaworu, Mari, and Shinji were silent for a minute.

          “... yikes,” Mari finally whispered.

          Both of the boys agreed.

\---

          Lillith and her two cronies came back sooner than they had expected, and they all gathered back to their makeshift dining room.

          “We got sooo many berries and mushrooms for you, sis!” Lillith sung.

          Rei looked down at the mushrooms in her hands. They seemed to all have faint bite marks on them, and Sachiel and Ramiel were facing the other direction, both seeming quite green around the gills.

          “Thank you, sister.” Rei granted her sister a small bow, and Lillith lit up like a Christmas tree.

          “Would you like me to cook them for you?” Lillith asked. “The fire’s still going, and we have some water and sugar, so we could make some, uh, sweet mushroom soup!”

          “Sweet… mushroom soup?” Rei asked, grimacing.

          “It might be good, you never know!” Lillith grinned. “It’s too bad we don’t have any other spices here, like salt or pepper, or curry seasoning…”

          Shinji remembered he had one package of ramen into his knapsack. He hesitated to offer Rei its seasoning and noodles, but then felt bad. In the end, he grabbed out the ramen and presented it to Rei.

          “You can use this for seasoning… and you might as well have the noodles, too,” Shinji mumbled.

          Lillith glanced back and forth from the two of them. Rei stood shell-shocked, but recovered and took the ramen and held it to her chest.

          “Thank you so much, Shinji…” Rei smiled. “It means a lot to me.”

          Rei turned around and affixed her older sister with a cheeky smile.

          “Let’s save the sugar for some other time,” Rei said.

          Her sister could only nod a reply, feeling too awestruck to speak.


	28. Hey, Sis

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shinji and Rei realize something; Shinji starts a cold.

          Shinji sat in a bush, his ears straining for any noise — the snap of a twig, the rustling of leaves, or even a snort that might allude to where his prey lay.

          He breathed out, and his fingers twitched on the slender wooden bow in his hands. Its arrow was nocked beforehand; he was ready to shoot at any time.

          A step came from the underbrush. Shinji flew out of the shrub and shot—at nothing.

          He turned his head. The boar's ugly face stood an inch away from his face, and he could feel its disgusting breath against his face.

          The boar blinked, and Shinji blinked back before he screamed.

          Lillith was by his side in moments. With an amused smile, she hoisted the pig away from him and slit its throat with ease. Shinji had to look away.

          “What a nice find! Good try at hitting it, you were only a few feet off!” Lillith smiled, slapping Shinji roughly on the back. Shinji coughed.

          “Thanks,” Shinji replied, his voice dry.

          Kaworu and Mari appeared from the trees behind them.

          “Shinji, I heard you scream. What happened?” Kaworu asked, his eyes surveying the fresh blood on Shinji’s clothes.

          Shinji pointed at the boar on Lillith’s shoulders.

          “I see,” Kaworu said. He narrowed his eyes at Lillith, but then shook his head.

          “I think it’s time for us to stop hunting,” Kaworu ordered.

          “Aww, what?!” Lillith gasped. “We’ve only been out here for, like, an hour!” 

          “ _ Two _ hours,” Kaworu interjected.

          “Whatever, we barely even got started!” Lillith argued.

          Kaworu locked eyes with Shinji. Shinji looked queasy, and after having to hold up the heavy bow in his hands for two hours without rest, his arms were shaking.

          “Me and Shinji are done. We’re tired, and so we’re going to go back,” Kaworu replied. He turned to Mari. “Are you coming with us?”

          Mari played with the knife in her hands. She took one look at Lillith’s pouting expression, and a smile grew on her face.

          “Nah, I’m fine. I’ll stay out here and keep our lovely Lillith company.” Mari winked at Lillith.

          “See you later, then,” Kaworu replied, waving good-bye and walking away with Shinji.

          Kaworu relieved Shinji of his bow, him carrying it instead. His other free hand linked with Shinji’s.

          “Are you alright after that, Shinji?” Kaworu asked.

          “Yeah, I’m okay,” Shinji said with a wry smile.

          The air was crisp and chilly. They walked together in silence, stepping on the last ashen leaves of fall. The very top spire of the old mansion Lillith and them were staying at was visible in the distance, and they used that to find their way back.

          Shinji hummed a nonsensical tune.  They swung their arms with every step.

          “I  _ knew _ this was a bad idea,” Kaworu muttered, breaking the silence.

          “You knew what was a bad idea?” Shinji questioned.

          “Hunting!” Kaworu groaned. “Mari is great at it, and apparently so is Lillith and her friends, but I knew you weren’t meant for it. We shouldn’t have asked you to try it.”

          Shinji laughed.

          “It wasn't all for waste: at least I tried it once. Now I know for sure that I hate it,” he replied.

          Kaworu swung their hands around in a loop.

          “Some people just aren’t born to kill,” Kaworu commented.

          “Like me… and you?” Shinji asked, looking at Kaworu for his answer. 

          “Yeah, I suppose…” Kaworu mumbled. “I do hate killing things if I don’t have to, so I guess we are alike in that way. It doesn’t make us better people, just…”

          “Different people?” Shinji offered.

          “Yes, exactly.”  Kaworu smiled.

          They reached the mansion’s front entrance, and they rapped on the door with its brass knocker.

          “What’s the password?” A faint voice came from inside.

          Shinji was shocked. He stared at Kaworu and mouthed ‘password?’

          Kaworu rolled his eyes, gesturing at Shinji towards the door.

          “It’s Rei’s favorite food,” Kaworu whispered. "Lillith's idea."

          “Oh!” Shinji said, nodding.

          Shinji leaned towards the door, and he shakily answered:

          “Tofu…?”

          The door slid open a crack to reveal Sachiel’s glaring red-and-black eye, and he looked them up and down before opening the door to let them in.

          “Thank you,” Shinji said.

          Sachiel grunted, and then shut and locked the door. He turned to Shinji.

          “How was the hunting trip?” Sachiel grinned.

          Shinji couldn’t hide his grimace.

          “It wasn’t my cup of tea,” Shinji replied.

          Sachiel smiled.

          “I get it,” Sachiel said.

          “Oh, and since I’m done with it, you can have your bow back,” Shinji said.

          Kaworu handed Sachiel his bow, and Sachiel held it like it weighed nothing.

          Sachiel inspected his bow for any scrapes or stains. Finding it to his satisfaction, he nodded and fist-bumped Shinji and Kaworu.

          “Thanks, little man,” Sachiel replied.

          Shinji and Kaworu excused themselves before Sachiel could find an excuse to mess up their hair, and they peeked into the room where Rei was napping. They tiptoed around her to get firewood, and then returned to the main room, where they sat in front of the fireplace.

          “Do you have the flint?” Shinji asked, throwing a piece of wood into the fireplace.

          “I think so…” Kaworu replied, digging into his winter jacket. “Unless… did Ramiel take it?”

          “He might have. He was the one who cooked breakfast.” Shinji shivered.

          Kaworu clicked his tongue, shrugged off his jacket, and wrapped it around Shinji. Shinji thanked him with a running nose, and Kaworu inwardly cursed these lowering temperatures.

          “I’ll be right back,” Kaworu said, kissing Shinji on the cheek and running to the kitchen.

          Catching sight of the man, Kaworu skid to a stop on the polished stone floors.

          Ramiel, like always, was wearing his blue windbreaker jacket that reflected like a gemstone in the light. His body was angled and geometric, and he stirred a pot with one bored arm.

          “Hello,” Kaworu greeted him.

          Ramiel jumped and some boiling liquid splashed on him. He hissed and swore, and then laid on his elbows on the counter. He pressed his face onto the cold granite countertops.

          “Christ, why do you always sneak around like a goddamn cat and scare me half to death!” Ramiel said, glowering at him.

          “Sorry,” Kaworu replied.

          Ramiel muttered something under his breath, and then began stirring the soup once more.

          “Next time, can you just try stomping into the room or something? Or just calling out for me before you get so close?” Ramiel pleaded.

          “Sure, whatever you’d like,” Kaworu replied, blinking.

          “You’re a weird kid, you know that?” Ramiel sighed. “Anyway, what do you want?”

          Kaworu reached out his hand.

          “Can I have the flint?” he asked. “I want to start the fireplace.”

          “Sure,” Ramiel replied, handing him the black rock.

          “Do you have the steel lighter with you, as well?” Kaworu asked. Ramiel frowned and then shook his head.

          “No, now that you mention it, an hour ago I gave it to Rei so that she could file her nails,” Ramiel replied.

          Kaworu huffed, and then thanked him and left the room.

          “I’ve been away from Shinji for too long already,” Kaworu complained, pissed off. “He’s probably getting too cold.”

          Not wanting to waste anymore time, Kaworu teleported into Rei’s room. His sudden appearance didn’t seem to wake her, as she let out a tiny snore and kicked something in her sleep.

          Making sure to create as little noise as possible, Kaworu searched in the dresser drawers beside her. There he found some colored pencils, paper, assorted colorful rocks, and a book about wild fish.

          Kaworu opened the fish book, and the steel lighter fell out —along with multiple detailed sketches of different kinds of fish. Kaworu bent down to pick up everything, and he placed Rei’s drawings neatly on top of the book.

          He picked up the lighter, and then realized that he had missed one drawing.

          It was a drawing of a woman with short brown hair. Rei had been thorough in drawing her facial features, and her brown eyes and small pink lips looked almost life-like.

          Kaworu stared at the picture for perhaps too longer than he thought was necessary. Coming back to himself with a start, he chastised himself for wasting time, and then gently placed the woman drawing on top of the fish ones.

          He left the room with a fleeting thought—that the woman in the picture seemed to remind him of someone—but it faded after he finally met up with Shinji again, and he heard before he saw that Shinji’s teeth were chattering up a storm.

          “Shinji!” Kaworu yelled.

          Shinji slowly turned around to smile at him, his ears and cheeks red.

          Kaworu felt like the worst person ever. He resisted the urge to gather Shinji up in his arms and snuggle him until he was warm, and instead kneeled by the fireplace to rub the steel and flint together.

          After a few tries, sparks jumped onto the logs and the fire was rekindled. Kaworu blew on it lightly, feeding it carbon dioxide, and the fire spluttered happily in return.

          Despite his protests that he was fine, Kaworu pushed Shinji closer to the fire’s warmth.

          “If you get too cold, you’re going to get sick,” Kaworu warned Shinji.

          Shinji rubbed his hands together.

          “I think I’m already getting sick,” Shinji said, chuckling. “So it's too late for that! My nose is so stuffed up that I can’t breathe through it, and my throat feels like there’s a frog in it.”

          Kaworu swore.

          “It’s okay, Kaworu!” Shinji laughed, rubbing his head against Kaworu’s like a cat until Kaworu was forced to crack a smile. “Don’t blame yourself! I just get cold easily. I was made that way.”

          “You really got the short end of the stick, being somebody that can’t handle blood, killing, or winter,” Kaworu sighed.

          “At least I’ve got you to keep me warm,” Shinji said, laying on Kaworu until his back lay flush with Kaworu’s chest. Kaworu wrapped his arms around him and rested his head on Shinji’s shoulder.

          “You know I would burn down this entire forest if it meant keeping you warm, Shinji,” Kaworu said.

          “Really??” Shinji laughed, softly punching Kaworu’s arm. “Don’t do that, Kaworu! That’s a very bad idea.”

          “At least you’d be warm,” Kaworu replied.

          “I’d be  _ too  _ warm, actually. I’d be on fire, love,” Shinji joked.

          Shinji let out a giggle when Kaworu left some wet kisses on his neck.

          “Kaworu, eww! Stop!” Shinji laughed. “Don’t get too close, I’ll get you sick, remember?”

          “We can be sick together,” Kaworu smirked. “That wouldn’t be so bad.”

          Shinji brought his hand up to stroke Kaworu’s face.

          “But if we’re both sick… who’s going to be there to get us warm soup and tuck us into bed?” Shinji asked.

          “Damn, you’re right…” Kaworu said. “Maybe I can get Mari to do it?”

          “You’d have to pay her to take care of us like that!” Shinji laughed again.

          Kaworu agreed with him, but didn’t want to say that, so instead he tickled Shinji’s stomach.

          In between peals of laughter, Shinji begged for Kaworu to stop tickling him, which made Kaworu redouble his efforts.

          After a minute, loud footsteps came down the stairs, and Rei appeared in the doorway. Kaworu’s fingers stilled.

          “Oh, I’m sorry Rei, did we wake you?” Kaworu asked, feeling like he should apologize profusely if that was the case.

          “Oh shoot, Rei…” Shinji added guiltily. He had been laughing rather loudly.

          Rei looked between the two of them and then at the roaring fire. Something in her mind clicked, and she stared at them.

          “Did you come into my room?” Rei asked.

          Kaworu noticed Rei was holding a piece of paper in her left hand, but when Rei saw him looking, she hid it behind her back.

          “I did, yes, to get the steel lighter,” Kaworu answered.

          Rei gave him a look that was almost a glare.

          “So, you were the one who went through my drawers,” Rei accused.

          “Yes, and I apologize for that. I didn’t take anything else besides the steel,” Kaworu replied, raising his hands up.

          When Rei didn’t reply, Kaworu felt compelled to say something else.

          “You are quite skilled at drawing,” Kaworu said. “Your pictures are very good.”

          Rei’s cheeks reddened.

          “Thanks,” she mumbled.

          “I’m sorry if I ruined any of them. I didn’t want to jam them back into your book, but then again I did mess up them order of them, so I apologize,” Kaworu said.

          “It’s okay,” Rei replied, her expression softening back into neutrality.

          Rei turned back around and stepped on the first step.

          “I’m going back to sleep, see you guys at dinner,” Rei yawned.

          Kaworu saw a flash of the drawing in Rei’s hands; it was of that woman.

          “Oh, I wanted to ask you, Rei,” Kaworu began. 

          Rei turned around half-way and waited for him to finish his sentence.

          “Who is that?” Kaworu pointed to the picture in her hands.

          Rei’s eyes widened, and she hid the picture in front of her.

          “Um… that’s nobody… nobody at all,” Rei said. She continued up the stairs.

          Kaworu thought of calling out to her again, but Rei seemed like she was about to cry, so he didn’t.

          However, a minute after she went upstairs, Rei surprised them by heading back down and showing them both her drawing.

          “This is my mother,” Rei whispered, not meeting their eyes.

          “Wow, she’s beautiful!” Kaworu gushed. His heart welled up with happiness at the fact that Rei had decided to share with them such a private part of her life that she was certainly still emotional about —and apparently still coping with.

          Shinji smiled and, meeting Rei’s eyes to get her consent, took the picture to examine it further.

          “She looks a lot like my mother, actually...” Shinji confided, his eyes also feeling wet as he looked at Rei’s drawing. “I’m feeling a bit melancholic looking at this, so you should probably take it back Rei…”

          Shinji handed her drawing back, smoothing its crinkled edges out the best he could.

          “If you don’t mind me asking, what was her name?” Kaworu asked.

          Rei put the drawing back in her pocket and patted it with her fingers. She grabbed the bottom of her shirt to dry her eyes, and then cleared her throat before she spoke.

          “It was Yui,” Rei smiled. “That’s one of the few things I remember about her.”

          “Yui?” Shinji asked, his brows furrowing.

          “That’s a beautiful name,” Kaworu said. “She must have been a wonderful woman.”

          Rei laughed, but it was with a tinge of bitterness.

          “She was, and she wasn’t. I didn’t see her often after her and my father got divorced, and she married that other man,” Rei said.

          “Yui?” Shinji repeated. His eyes trailed over Rei’s face, and if he looked close enough, some of her features looked eerily familiar. 

          And… some of them looked very similar to his.

          “Hey, Kaworu?” Shinji asked, grabbing Kaworu’s arm to get his attention.

          “Yes?” Kaworu answered.

          His stomach in his throat, Shinji stood beside Rei.

          “Me and Rei have similar noses, don’t we,” Shinji commented.

          Kaworu looked at the two of them, and he nodded.

          “I suppose you both do, yes,” Kaworu said.

          “Do you see any other things that we both have in common?” Shinji asked.

          Rei looked at him like he was crazy, but she played along.

          “Well, I guess you both have quite long eyelashes… oh, and your hands are both small and dainty—no offense Shinji,” Kaworu said.

          “None taken,” Shinji said.

          “And… you both do have similar body frames, and you’re nearly the same height,” Kaworu said.

          “Are we really?” Rei asked.

          Rei placed a hand over her head and moved it forwards. It landed on Shinji’s, and she grinned.

          “I guess we are!”

          Shinji turned towards Rei.

          “You were born a year before me, right?” Shinji asked.

          “Yeah,” Rei replied.

          Exhaling a huge breath, Shinji laid down on the floor like a corpse. He was thinking hard, and his expression was pinched with many conflicting opinions.

          “Can you remember what the man who married your mother looked like?” Shinji asked.

          “Not really,” Rei frowned. “I only saw him two or three times before my mother left us for him… I think he had choppy black hair, and a long nose…”

          “And stupid orange glasses?” Shinji supplied, holding back a snort.

          “Yeah, he did,” Rei nodded. “Wait, how did you know?”

          Shinji groaned and rolled onto his stomach. 

          “I know because… well, fuck, because Yui was  _ my _ mother, too!” Shinji revealed.

          Rei stood there in shock.

          The dinner bell rung from inside the kitchen, Ramiel called out the window for Ramiel and Lillith to come back, and then he yelled at them that dinner was done.

          Rei collapsed to the floor, her face mere centimeters away from Shinji’s.

          Without speaking, they studied each others faces. From up close Rei recognized Yui’s dark chocolate brown eyes in Shinji’s, and Rei’s puzzled expression reminded Shinji so much of his mother that he felt a bit choked up.

          “I guess we’re siblings, then?” Shinji said.

          “Half-siblings?” Rei asked back.

          “I guess so,” Shinji agreed.

          They stared at the ceiling.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whoo! This was a long time coming.  
> I'm a sucker for everybody-is-related Evangelion AUs, and since Rei was cloned from Yui, I thought this would make sense.


	29. Salty Soup and Muzzled Dogs

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lillith catches a fish. Lillith finishes the chapter still eating the fish. The circle of fish is complete.

          Lillith slammed the door to the mansion and kicked it shut with her foot once she and Mari had arrived back from hunting. Mari heaved two plump ducks on her shoulders, and Lillith swung around a long, silver fish like it was a baseball bat.

          “Rei!! Do you eat fish?” Lillith called out. “I caught a fish!!”

          Rei opened her eyes. She and Shinji had been relaxing on the floor, not enough for them to fall asleep, but just enough for them to get a break  from the stress of their day-to-day lives.

          Kaworu had joined them, and he laid on his arms outstretched over his head. His eyes were still shut, but his eyebrows had risen a bit. Shinji, next to him, was rubbing his eyes and sitting up.

          “REI! I’m asking if you eat fish!!” Lillith yelled out again.

          Rei rolled over on her side, towards the door, and screamed back: “NO! THANK YOU, THOUGH!!”

          “YOU DON’T EVEN EAT FISH??” Lillith shouted. “NOT EVEN FISH?”

          “NO!”

          Lillith pushed open the door and came into the room. Even though they were now less than ten feet away from each other, the sisters continued shouting at each other as loudly as they could.

          “WHAT ABOUT SEAWEED? IF I PICKED UP SOME SEAWEED WOULD YOU EAT IT?” Lillith asked.

          “SURE!!” Rei answered, standing up abruptly and clenching her fists.

          “WELL, GOOD! I’M GLAD!” Lillith replied playfully passive-aggressively. She held out her huge fish for Rei to look at. Its scales glittered in the light.

          “Ooh, it’s pretty,” Rei said. “Can I touch it?”

          “Yeah, but be careful of its scales. They could cut you,” Lillith replied.

          Rei lightly poked the fish, smiling.

          "Squishy, ain’t it? I caught it with my bare hands!” Lillith bragged, puffing up her chest.

          “All by yourself?” Rei asked.

          Lillith deflated a little, shrugging.

          “Well… m-maybe I had a little help from the girl with the glasses, but she only helped me a little! I did most of the work,” Lillith answered.

          Rei patted her older sister on the head.

          “Good job.”

          Lillith smiled lazily in response.

          The four headed back to the kitchen, where Mari was helping to de-feather the bloody birds with Ramiel. Sachiel stood tending the fire.

          Lillith dropped her fish on the table. It made a loud, wet smack, which made a few people shudder.

          “What should I do with this, Lillith?” Ramiel asked, eyeing the fish.

          “Skin, salt, and boil it! Oh, and I call eating the eyeballs!” Lillith winked.

          “Gross,” Rei deadpanned, staring at her sister with a grimace.

          Lillith laughed and swung her arm around her sister’s shoulder.

          “Hey, don’t knock it until you try it! Eyeballs are squishy and full of nutrients… I think!” Lillith said.

          The ducks and fish were cooked and seasoned with a few pinches of valuable salt. Once the food was distributed to everyone, and they were in a good, sated mood from being fed, Rei cleared her throat.

          “Lillith, I-we have something to tell you,” Rei said.

          “Huh?” Lillith asked, stopping mid-bite on a piece of browned duck flesh. “Wait, who’s ‘we?’”

          “Me and Shinji,” Rei replied, gesturing towards her half-brother sitting next to her. "We're... uh..."

          Lillith’s face fell.

          “D-don’t tell me…” Lillith said.

          Rei tilted her head in confusion, and Lillith looked like she was about to burst into tears.

          “You’re getting married!? I can’t believe this! My young, baby sister already betrothed to some guy who can’t protect her as well as I can!” Lillith yelled, glaring at Shinji like he was shit on the bottom of her boot. “I knew this reunion was going to lead to something bad…”

          After a second, though, something clicked in Lillith’s head and she stared at Rei.

          “Wait, aren’t you asexual? Therefore you don’t want a boyfriend or girlfriend??” Lillith questioned.

          “That's absolutely right.” Rei nodded. “Sis, are you going to go on another tirade and interrupt me, or are you going to listen to me this time?”

          Lillith withered under Rei’s stern look.

          “I’m listening,” Lillith said. “Sorry, sorry.”

          “After some talking, me and Shinji found out something today, something that you should know,” Rei began.

          “Something  _ I  _ should know?” Lillith asked. Rei nodded again.

          Lillith wrung her hands, and Rei cleared her throat.

          “Me and Shinji are related,” Rei said, dropping a bombshell on the group.

          “What??” Lillith asked. She looked back and forth from the two of them. “Is this a joke?”

          “Lillith, do you remember mother?” Rei asked.

          “Mother?? .... I guess?” Lillith replied, a little perplexed. “I hadn’t seen her in years before the lurkers came, but I still remember what she looked like, and all of that, if that’s what you mean…?”

          “Yui, our mother, was Shinji’s mother, too. After she divorced our dad—”

          “—and left us.” Lillith interjected angrily.

          “—and left, yes, she married Shinji’s father and they had him shortly after,” Rei said.

          “Wow,” Lillith said, slouching back and staring at the wall introspectively for a few seconds. “Wow… That’s all I can say.”

          “But do you know what this means?” Rei perked up, pushing Lillith’s shoulder.

          “What?” Lillith asked.

          “We have a brother!!” Rei shouted.

          Both Lillith and Rei focused their gazes on Shinji, who began to fidget awkwardly.

          Lillith’s eyes raked over Shinji. She glanced at Rei, and then gestured for Shinji to come over.

          “What?” Shinji asked. 

          Lillith offered no explanation, so Shinji hesitantly walked over to them. He gasped as he was pulled into a hug by Lillith.

          “Lucky you,” Lillith said. “You get to deal with the both of us, now, little bro.”

          Lillith grinned at Shinji, releasing him.

          “Welcome to the family!”

          Shinji nodded politely, his mind still reeling.

          Lillith ruffled Shinji’s hair. The group settled back into finishing their lunch.

          ----

          It was nearly nightfall when the group heard a few lurkers outside.

          Lillith clicked her tongue. She and Rei had been drawing collaboratively on the mansion’s wallpaper for the past two hours, and she was almost done with her artistic interpretation of everyone in the group fighting against Godzilla. With little artistic talent, she couldn’t do much but make scribbles and stick figures, but she was proud of how she had drawn everyone’s hair to make them look like themselves. 

          They were all recognizable!... At least she hoped.

          Lillith stepped away from her mural, replacing the colored pencils in her hands with her bow and arrow.

          Rei carefully put the pencils back, arranging them by color, and she hung back behind Lillith as they stepped outside.

          Kaworu and Mari were already there, having been closer to the front door. Kaworu had been staying with Shinji as he fought his cold, healing him often, and he seemed a bit miffed to have to been taken away him helping his boyfriend. They hid behind the mansion’s front gate, peering out at the lurkers. The sisters shuffled up to them.

          “How many of them are there?” Lillith whispered.

          “I see two on the right,” Mari answered.

          There’s one in front of us, and another sneaking to the far left,” Kaworu added.

          “We should split up and take them all at once to disorientate them,” Lillith said. She turned towards her sister. “You should go back, Rei.”

          “I’m fine,” Rei replied, rolling her eyes.

          “Like hell you are,” Lillith replied. “You don’t even have a weapon with you! What, are you gonna beat them with their bare fists?”

          Rei let out a laugh, and the group froze as the lurkers all stopped to gaze at their position.

          Lillith sighed.

          “I’ll get the ones on the right. Mari, get the one in front, and Kaworu can get the guy on the left,” Lillith whispered.

          “So you  _ do _ remember my name,” Mari said under her breath, smirking.

          Lillith gave her a glare. With her hands, she counted down from five, and they sprung out.

          “Die!” Lillith yelled, pulling her bow back and shooting an arrow into the nearest lurker’s stomach. She went up close, tripping it with her bow, and she stomped onto the lurker’s head with inhuman force. Its skull caved in, and then she squashed the lurker’s brains into mush.

          Grinning in glee, Lillith rounded on the other lurker. She strangled it with the string of her bow, kicked it down to its knees, and then crushed its head with the point of her bow.

          Lillith rummaged through the lurkers’ pockets. She found a useless half-full carton of cigarettes, and some mint-flavored chapstick.

          “Psh, no knives or anything,” Lillith complained. “What a bust.”

          Lillith brushed off the dirt and stood up. She turned around to see if the others had completed their jobs, and froze.

          Both of their lurkers were still alive, but hanging upside-down in the air.

          “What the fuck?” Lillith swore.

          Rei, Mari, and Kaworu stood in front of the pair of lurkers, but they turned around to look at her. Lillith thought she saw similar grimaces flash over both Kaworu’s and—to a lesser extent—Mari’s faces once they caught sight of the lurkers that she had mangled.

          “What are you doing?!” Lillith asked again, pointing towards the floating lurkers.

          “We’re debating about bringing these people back to life,” Mari replied.

          Lillith cleaned out her ear with her finger, unsure if she had heard that right.

          “Kaworu and I both want to,” Rei said. “But, they both don’t look like fighters, and Mari is concerned that the two will just get bitten again shortly after we revive them.”

          “Revive?? What??” Lillith asked, slowly putting down her weapon.

          “I can turn lurkers back into their human selves,” Kaworu explained. “I just need to inject them with my blood.”

          “Huh,” Lillith replied.“Seems like a lot of work.”

          “Better than just killing them,” Kaworu said, looking Lillith in the eye. Lillith bristled.

          “Do you wanna say something, kid? Say it, then,” Lillith snarled back.

          “If it was still possible to bring them back to their former selves, I just think that would be better than killing them again, and for forever,” Kaworu snapped back.

          “Oh, fuck off,” Lillith said. “We don’t need another two people to feed. Just kill them and be done with it.”

          “We shouldn’t be fighting, guys,” Rei spoke up. “We could vote on this, and get Ramiel and Sachiel back here—”

          “Rei,” Lillith warned. “Shut up.”

          “I’m going to heal them,” Kaworu said decisively. “Mari, give me your knife.”

          “Mari, don’t give him your knife,” Lillith barked, clenching her fists. “Just get out of the way, I’ll do this.”

          Lillith nocked her arrow and pulled it back. To her frustration, Kaworu and then Rei stepped in front of the lurkers, shielding them.

          “I think they deserve a chance,” Rei said, pushing her sister’s bow down.

          “God damn it, this is so stupid!” Lillith growled. She tried moving around her sister, but she kept blocking her way.

          Lillith threw down her weapon with a huff. As a last resort, she turned towards Mari, and said:

          “You agree with me, at least? We should just kill them?”

          Mari frowned. She shook her head, and Lillith held back a gasp. She was completely outnumbered, and she felt humiliated. Part of her wanted to call for her minions, but she knew it was a lost cause.

          “I hate you all,” Lillith said.

          Kaworu waved his hand in front of the lurker’s faces. A blue aura covered their mouths, and in a blink the lurkers were gone.

          “HUH?! What did you do to them??” Lillith questioned suspiciously, looking all around them.

          “I compromised,” Kaworu answered. “They’ve been transported to a remote location, far away from us.”

          “YOU LET THEM ESCAPE?!!” Lillith yelled. “You IDIOT! Now they’re going to infect others, and there’s nothing we can fucking do about that! GREAT job!”

          Lillith started to furiously ramble and pace around, her sentences coming out too fast and stilted for the rest of them to understand. The three watched her for a few moments.

          “What did you do to their mouths?” Rei asked Kaworu.

          “I covered them up so that way they couldn’t bite anyone,” Kaworu replied. “Now, they’re like muzzled dogs. Harmless.”

          “Are you planning to heal them later?” Mari asked.

          “Yes, just as soon as we’re safer and in a better place than now,” Kaworu said.

          “Somewhere with food,” Mari said.

          “Yes, somewhere with an easier access to food, water, and shelter,” Kaworu agreed. “Where we can host a big group, and where we can revive and care for as many people as possible.”

          “Sounds good. I wonder, though, if you’ll have enough blood to heal everybody in the world,” Mari laughed.

          “Maybe if I stagger them...” Kaworu replied, suddenly serious.“God, I’m not sure if I can save everybody, but damn, I’ll try!”

          “That’s the spirit, bucko!” Mari said, punching Kaworu’s shoulder.

          “I’m tired, can we go back?” Rei asked.

          The kids offered their consent, and Lillith followed them. Rei hung back to bother her older sister until she had uncrossed her arms and relaxed her grumpy expression.

          “You okay?” Rei asked Lillith.

          Lillith breathed out and shrugged one of her shoulders.

          “It’s whatever,” Lillith replied.

          “Okay, if you say so,” Rei sung, smiling. “I can tell you’re still salty, though.”

          “Super salty,” Lillith agreed. A smile threatened her face as well, but she pushed it down.

          “Saltier than the Atlantic Ocean?” Rei asked, hugging Lillith’s arm.

          Lillith chuckled.

          “Saltier than the Dead Sea,” she replied.

          Rei snorted, and they both laughed together, walking inside the mansion’s doors.

          ----

          Almost everyone in the compound was napping, sans Lillith—who was too wired up to be sleeping right now, no matter how hard she tried, and Shinji, who had just spent the last fifteen hours asleep.

          Lillith sat in front of the fire with Shinji. Shinji’s blanket was wrapped around both of their shoulders, despite Shinji’s protests that Lillith could get his cold.

          To that, Lillith had answered that she didn’t give a damn. Even so, Shinji made sure to turn away whenever he had to sneeze or cough.

          “Do you want some food,” Lillith asked him. “I could get some leftover fish.”

          “I don’t feel hungry,” Shinji said. “It’s fine.”

          “You should eat something, at least,” Lillith replied, jabbing his stomach. “Even though you’re sick, your body needs sustenance.”

          “What if I puke it up?” Shinji said.

          Lillith chuckled. She stood up and wrapped Shinji’s blankets over his face.

          “Then I’d clean it up!” Lillith answered, jumping on top of her younger brother and tickling him over the blankets.

          “Stop, stop!” Shinji wheezed. He rolled over to try and get away, but Lillith crawled on top of him and squashed him with her weight.

          “Oof,” Shinji breathed out. “You’re heavy.”

          “It’s all muscle,” Lillith smirked, flexing even though Shinji couldn’t see it. She stood up off of Shinji and headed into the kitchen.

          “I’m going to get you some soup.”

          “Mm’kay,” Shinji replied.

          Lillith opened the cupboard they stored food in. She held her nose at the awful smell—they had to salt everything or pickle it for it to stay edible past the day.

          Man, she missed refrigerators.

          Lillith pulled out the jug they used to store the rest of the soup they had the day before. It was piled full of so much salt that it probably wouldn’t even taste like it had before, but there was nothing they could do. To make eating it less unbearable, Lillith watered it down quite a bit.

          Now, Lillith had to find a way to heat up this cold soup. She poured it into a dinner bowl and put it on a metal sheet. She grabbed some fish jerky for herself, and went back to the fireplace.

          Shinji had untangled himself from his blankets. He smiled when she entered, and then moved back when she kneeled in front of the fireplace to place his soup in the fire.

          Lillith watched the soup carefully. She let it boil for a few seconds, and then pulled it out of the fire and stirred it with a spoon. She carefully laid it on the floor in front of Shinji.

          “Wait a few seconds for it to cool down. You don’t want to burn your tongue,” Lillith said.

          “Thank you,” Shinji said.

“It’s no problem,” Lillith replied, taking a bite out of her jerky. She lifted up the blankets for her to settle comfortably inside again.

          They sat in silence, Lillith slowly eating to savor its flavor.

          “How long have you guys been here?” Shinji asked to make conversation.

          “A few months, I guess,” Lillith replied.

          Shinji spooned up a bit of his soup and blew on it until the steam rising from it dissipated. He placed the spoon in his mouth.

          “Taste alright?” Lillith asked.

          Shinji ate another spoonful.

          “It tastes like salt,” he said, which brought a smile from his older sister.

          “You can’t even taste the duck, can you? That’s a shame,” Lillith said.

          “It’s okay, though,” Shinji shrugged.

          “You sure? You can still have a bite of my jerky,” Lillith said, offering him some.

          “No thank you,” Shinji said, holding up a hand.

          “You’re so polite, dude, it’s kind of funny,” Lillith laughed. “Whatever, it tastes great.”

          Finishing her snack, Lillith licked her fingers clean and stretched out her hands to the fire.

          “How long are you guys planning to stay here?” Shinji asked.

          “For as long as we have to until Adam comes back,” Lillith replied.

          “Adam?” Shinji asked.

          “Yeah, he’s another friend of mine, and the other co-leader of our group. He, Arael, Leliel, and  Armisael went on a trip up north to scope out the cities there,” Lillith said. “They said they would be back in a month, but I’m not too worried.”

          “Why not? They could be dead,” Shinji replied, slurping up the dredges of his soup. “Three months is a long time.”

“I guess so,” Lillith said, resting her head on the floor. “But they’re pretty strong people, way more stronger than the goons Sachiel and Ramiel here.”

          Lillith brushed some of her white hair out of her face.

          “And, if they’re dead, then I get a promotion,” she said with a small smile.

          “What?” Shinji asked, his brows furrowing.

          “If Adam dies, I’m the new leader in command,” Lillith grinned. “It wouldn’t be all that bad.”

          “O-oh… I see,” Shinji said.

          They returned back to just laying there and basking in the fire’s warmth. However, Shinji’s cogs were working like a clock.

          He was really warming up to Lillith, his oldest sister, but even so, he really hoped (for everyone’s sake) that Adam, whoever he was, was still alive.

          “I’m heading to bed before I fall asleep here,” Lillith said, patting her stomach. “Good-night, Shinji.”

          “Good night, Lillith.”

          Shinji watched as Lillith went into her room and shut the door. He laid on the floor covered in blankets, thinking about their future.


	30. Out of Left Field

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Adam's group crashes in.

          “Come on! Boost me up more, Mari!” Lillith yelled as Mari pushed her up onto a steel platform that stood seventy feet in the air.

          “Oof!” Mari said. A flash of pain went through her hand, and she looked down at her palm and winced.

          “Damn it, stop being so rough! The soles of your boot cut me!” Mari groaned, applying pressure against the small, bloody gash to try and make it stop bleeding.

          “Well, at least my shoes aren’t muddy as hell!” Lillith shot back. To prove her point, she shoved her slimy, mud-covered hands into Mari’s face and then wiped them on her coat before continuing to climb.

          “How far do we still have to go?” Mari asked, bored out of her skull and following closely behind.

          “If you ask that one more time, I’m going to push you off this tower,” Lillith replied.

          “Ouch! That might kill me,” Mari chuckled.

          “You  _ think _ ?”

          The two girls reached the top of the tower in a minute, and they both leaned on the metal to catch their breath.

          “Don’t look down,” Lillith commented.

          Overcome with the urge now, Mari, of course, looked down.

          “Yikes! We’re so high up I can see the mansion from here!” Mari shouted. “Wait, is it time to signal to Kaworu?”

          “Not yet,” Lillith answered. She took out a small remote device from her pocket and turned it on.

          “Can we light the fireworks?” Mari asked, flicking a lighter out of her jacket.

          “Not yet, I said!” Lillith repeated.

          Lillith attached the device to the top of the tower, and its red light started blinking.

          “Is that a good sign or a bad one?” Mari asked. She tried touching the device’s main button, but Lillith smacked her hand away.

          “It’s a good sign, idiot. It means that the a little of the leftover electricity from the nearby electrical plant might still be there, and the device is picking up on that. I’m going to try and plug it in.”

          Lillith pushed the device’s charger into an open outlet on the side of the tower before plugging it in.

          “It’s not charging,” Lillith said, a bit disappointed. “It’s battery is dead, so I guess we’ll have to turn on this tower to get some charge.”

          “Hey, Kaworu and Shinji are waving to us!” Mari laughed, waving back at the boys still standing on the ground, looking up at them with binoculars.

          “No, stop!” Lillith growled, pushing her hand down. “Don’t make them think that we’re giving them the signal.”

          “Oh, yeah. This signal, right?” Mari said, flashing a thumbs up at Kaworu and Shinji, who were standing near the tower’s spare electricity generator.

          “WAIT, NO, FUCK!” Lillith yelled, seeing Kaworu nod at them before he flipped a switch under the generator’s hatch, which promptly lit the tower up with crackling electricity. 

          Lillith and Mari hurriedly moved away from the tower’s wires, which were now flowing with a dangerously-high electrical current, and onto another platform.

          “You’re so lucky we didn’t get shocked to death.” Lillith glared at Mari, who grinned back.

          “Pshh, we were soooo fine either way! This tower was built for workers to be standing at the top while it was running, wasn’t it?” Mari said. Lillith clicked her tongue.

          “Anyway, I’m going to try the radio channels, so please be quiet,” Lillith said.

          Lillith pushed the device’s button and it beeped twice before starting to spew straight static. Lillith unsheathed the device’s antenna, and she twisted the plastic knob on its right side a few times over.

          “Can you talk into it? You said it was a radio?” Mari asked, resting her head on Lillith’s shoulder.

          Lillith’s body stiffened, but she didn’t try and buck Mari off her.

          “Sadly, no, it’s just a receiver,” Lillith replied, flipping randomly through its channels. “It can receive distress signals from ships, or other transmissions from the surrounding areas, but we can’t make any calls out.”

          “What if we don’t find anything? Will this all have been useless?” Mari asked, standing up, squinting, and surveying the ground.

          Like as she thought, quite a few lurkers were hobbling to their position, having been brought to attention by the light suddenly shining from their tower, which cut through the dusk of the setting sun. It was almost blinding, actually, and Mari was glad to be wearing sunglasses.

          “This is my last idea, so if I don’t hear anything from Adam from this, I guess we’ll be on our own then,” Lillith sighed. “If I’m being honest… I’m kind of missing him.”

          “Five months is a long time to not hear anything,” Mari agreed before smirking. “Heh. You say that you ‘miss’ him, huh? Does that mean that I have a rival for your affections?”

          Lillith scoffed and pushed Mari’s leering face away. 

          “I don’t mean it like that!” Lillith huffed. “I just… this sounds stupid, but, like, I like being in power, yeah, but, I also, I don’t know, like being challenged?”

          “Hm, is that so,” Mari replied.

          “I enjoyed arguing with him about how to control our group, and where to go, and what our next plans should be.”

          “Fascinating,” Mari yawned.

          “He’s insufferable, yes, but he’s also very smart, and a better long-distance planner than me, and fuck! I even miss how his stupid minions would fight with mine!” Lillith ranted. “That was so entertaining.”

          Mari hummed out a reply, and Lillith deflated.

          “You’re not really interested in hearing about this, are you?” Lillith asked.

          “Nope.”

          “...”

          “...”

          Out of the silence, a few noises came out from the receiver, and they both held their breath and waited for anything more.

          After a few seconds, the crackling began again, and Lillith swore at the device’s uselessness and switched to another channel. For a few minutes, she just kept on changing channels, and Mari stood beside her and waited.

          “God, this is so boring,” Mari whined. “I’m going to climb down and join Kaworu and Shinji.”

          “No. Stay with me,” Lillith said, grabbing Mari’s wrist as she bent down towards the ladder.

          “Ooh la la,” Mari teased, flicking her eyes from Lillith’s face to her hand wrapped around her wrist. “I had no idea you felt that way about me, Lillith.”

          “Oh shut up, I just don’t want to be alone up here— you know, a hundred feet up in the air, in the darkness… with the imminent threat of being shocked to death if I misstep any time…”

          Mari giggled and turned back towards her. “Oh don’t worry then, darling, I’ll stay with you here, and make sure to catch you if you fall.”

          “Thank you,” Lillith mumbled, blowing a hair out of her eye.

          Lillith fumbled with the knob on her receiver again, this time only staying on a channel for a few seconds before switching to another. However, she soon became impatient and scrolled through the channels as fast as she could, just trying to find something.

          "God, this is so stupid!” Lillith complained. “Why does there need to be so many channels??”

          In between her flipping through, a voice came from the receiver before it was abruptly caught off by Lillith moving onto another channel.

          “Wait, no, go back! That was someone! I heard something!” Mari said, reaching for the device.

          “I didn’t hear anything,” Lillith said suspiciously. She and Mari wrestled for the receiver for a moment before Lillith relinquished it to her.

          “I’ll show you,” Mari said. She concentrated on going back to the right channel, her tongue peeking out of the corner of her mouth.

          “... got… out…”

          Mari’s hand flew away from the device’s knob and she held it in between both of their ears to hear the message the device was picking up on.

          “... where… no idea…”

          “Who the hell is this?” Mari voiced out loud.

          “... Lillith…”

          “Oh my god! That’s Adam’s voice!” Lillith practically shrieked into Mari’s ear.

          “Ouch!” Mari leaned back, rubbing her ear. “You don’t have to be that excited to hear your  _ boyfriend’s _ voice.”

          “Ugh, I  _ said _ I didn’t like him that way!” Lillith said, sticking out her tongue. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say you were jealous.”  

          Mari was silent, and Lillith moved the device back to their ears.

          “... mansion… dark…”

          “Huh? Oh-- he must mean that it’s too dark to see the mansion!” Lillith said. “They must be trying to find us!”

          Mari brought out the fireworks again, quirking her brow up in a silent question, and Lillith nodded.

          “Hell yeah!” Mari exclaimed, setting them down and lighting all of them at once. “Now, let’s get out of here!”

          Mari scrambled down the ladder with Lillith. After less than half a minute, their fireworks flew up into the sky and exploded in green and red stars. They covered their ears at the resounding booms.

          “Let’s hurry back,” Lillith said, going faster down the ladder’s rungs. “We gotta tell the others about this.”

          Mari grimaced as the wound in her hand was rubbed against the metal ladder, but she picked up her pace to keep in time with Lillith.

\-------

          “Go, go, go!” Lillith yelled, silencing Kaworu’s and Shinji’s questions for the moment and ushering the younger teens towards the direction of the mansion. They sprinted the mile back with the giant masse of lurkers trailing behind.

          Ramiel, who had been reading a newspaper near the doors,  jumped to attention at their sudden entrance.

          “Ramiel. I order you to only open these doors if you see Adam. We’re going to be swarmed in an hour,” Lillith commanded.

          “Adam?! D-did you say Adam? Is he finally here?” Ramiel stuttered.

          “No time, just do it,” Lillith answered, pushing the doors closed. “Once he’s here, you and Sachiel need to bar the entrances with as much heavy furniture and crates as you can carry.”

          Lillith ran back to get Sachiel. Ramiel stood there, mouth gaping open.

          “What happened?” Ramiel asked, slowly turning his attention to Mari and the other kids.

          “We heard Adam on our receiver, and we uh, kind of, lit some fireworks in the sky to show him to our position,” Mari explained to him. “And now there’s a fuckton of lurkers coming our way. So, you know… nothing big.”

          Lillith came skidding back into the room a second later. She focused her attention on Ramiel like a hawk, and her red eyes were blown wide.

          “Where is Rei.”

          Ramiel looked stunned for a second, before he replied: “I thought she was with you guys. You said you were taking her with, didn’t you?”

          Lillith breathed out through her nose like a dragon. She held her hands in front of her face to control herself, and then spoke:

          “I am ten seconds away from having a meltdown. No, she was not with us. I pointedly told you and Sachiel that she would be staying here, as it would be too dangerous for her to climb the tower with us. If you don’t find my little sister in five minutes, I’m going to skin you alive and force you to eat your own intestines.”

          Ramiel swallowed.

          “Is that clear.” Lillith’s eyes flashed.

          “Positively.” Ramiel bowed. He fled the room.

          Shinji, Mari, and Kaworu stood there for a second, unsure what to do.

          “Should we look outside for Rei?” Shinji attempted.

          “If you wish,” Lillith replied. “I’m going to hope that she’s just asleep in her bed, hidden by all of her blankets.”

          With the mood of someone walking to their execution, Lillith stalked up the stairs.

\-------

          “Sheesh, it’s too dark out here to see a thing,” Mari complained as they circled around the mansion, calling out Rei’s name. “Kaworu, light the place up.”

          “Wouldn’t that give our position away to the nearby lurkers?” Kaworu argued.

          “Be our flashlight, dude,” Mari said.

          “I hope she didn’t venture into the woods and get lost,” Shinji said.

          “I don’t think that would be wise,” Kaworu added.

          “Should we go down to the creek?” Shinji suggested. “She likes watching the fish there.”

          “It’s your time. You’ve been waiting your entire life for this one moment. Be the flashlight. Be the flashlight guy,” Mari said dramatically.

          Shinji heard something crunch a whiles away from them.

          “What if you just lit up your face, like a vampire,” Mari said.

          “I think that would scare Rei more than make her want to come near us,” Kaworu replied.

          “Guys…” Shinji started. Kaworu and Mari kept walking forwards.

          “Pfff, what if you lit up your fingers and made little rainbow flashlight beams,” Mari giggled, wiggling her fingers. “What an aesthetic.”

          “Guys.”

          “That’s not a very efficient use of my power,” Kaworu said. “I’ll decline.”

          “Bluh bluh, I’m Kaworu and I’m lame and only use my super cool powers to kill zombies and kiss boys soooooooooo,” Mari teased.

          “Bluh bluh bluh, I’m Mari and I enjoy proposing bad ideas and stabbing zombies and flirting with girls in my free time,” Kaworu shot back. “Bluh-”

          “Guys, SHUT UP!” Shinji yelled. 

          Kaworu and Mari whirled around to face him. Shinji pointed in the direction of the noise.

          “I think I heard something over there.”

          They gave Shinji their best guilty expressions, and he rolled his eyes and lead them to the sound.

          “Rei?” Mari asked aloud. They stepped loudly on the dry, dead leaves that littered their path.

          “Rei, yoohoo, girl, come over here~” Mari sung.

          “She’s not a dog,” Kaworu quipped.

          Shinji shushed them, and he saw something glint in the underbrush. He kneeled down and showed it to Kaworu and Mari.

          “Ooh, it’s a wristwatch! It looks fancy. But, who dropped it?” Mari asked.

          “It doesn’t look like it was accidentally ripped off,” Kaworu mumbled, taking the watch and inspecting it. “The band is intact, so how did someone lose it? Did they drop it on purpose?”

          “Hehe.”

          A chuckle came from above them, and the three saw three sets of eyes staring at them from on top of the nearest tree. One of the set of eyes was scarlet red. They were smiling.

          The laugh happened again, and suddenly all three of the figures above them had a weapon at their side, firmly pointed at Kaworu, Mari, and Shinji.

          “Are you looking to cause any trouble?” the red-eyed shadow asked, their voice deep and melodic. They swung their blade lazily in their hand, letting it reflect off the moon beams that shone through their tree.

          “Are you?” Kaworu echoed back. The two blood-red pairs of eye-havers locked onto each other.

          “Hm.” The figure hummed. “Interesting.”

          The red-eyed person jumped down from his tree perch, startling the three kids. Shinji took a step back.

          “Can I have that back?” he asked, gesturing towards the object in Kaworu’s hand.

          “This is  _ your  _ guys’s watch?” Kaworu quirked a brow.

          “It’s not a watch,” a feminine voice called out from above. “Dummy.”

          The other person up there seemed to roll their eyes.

          “It’s a communication device—mine, in fact,” the red-eyed man spoke. “I’d love to have it back.”

          “Why’d you drop it,” Kaworu shot back.

          “Thank you in advance,” the man said politely, holding up his hand.

          “You didn’t answer his question,” Mari retorted.

          “Dude, you’re being too nice with them, just take the communicator back!” a different woman’s voice called down. “This is a stupid use of our time.”

          The man seemed to remember something, and he looked to the three kids with eager eyes. 

          “Hey, do you guys know if there’s a mansion nearby,” he asked. “I’ll give you some cookies if you can bring us there.”

          The women above him groaned in unison, and they both started speaking over each other with haste:

          “Adam! You can’t keep offering food to every person we meet in exchange for their help with something!”

          “Hey—those cookies are ours! I found them! And, I thought we were going to rob them??”

          “Change of plans.” Adam smiled. “These are kids.”

          “So?” One of the women climbed down. She put her gun back in her jacket pocket.

          “The lurkers are gonna be here any minute!!” the other woman moaned, leaping down to join them.

          “We know of a mansion, it’s over there,” Mari offered. “If you’re Adam, Lillith is waiting for you.”

          “Lillith is still alive?” Adam asked and then laughed. “Of course she is.”

          “Um…” Shinji piped up. “I’m sorry, but, uh… we’re kind of trying to find someone right now, so we can’t really help you guys get there.”

          “One of your group got lost?” the taller woman asked.

          “But, the group of lurkers is coming,” Adam asked.

          “So?” Mari parroted back.

          “You should probably just leave them for dead,” Adam said, still smiling. “If they don’t get shelter in the next half hour, they’ll definitely be nothing but bones in the morning.”

          Shinji scoffed. “She’s an important member of our group,” he argued.

          “That’s too bad.” Adam shrugged. “But, what can you do. The lurkers trample over everybody.”

          “She’s Lillith’s baby sister!” Mari yelled. She crossed her arms. “Idiot.”

          Adam looked puzzled.

          “Lillith has a sister?” he asked.

          “Sounds like a lie,” the shorter woman said.

          A spattered bunch of lurkers’ moans started to come from the horizon. Mari felt like tearing out her hair in frustration, and she was about to just grab Kaworu and Shinji and go with them to continue looking, when the other woman spoke up:

          “Wait. Lillith did mention a few times about having a sister.”

          “Did she? I must have forgotten,” Adam replied.

          “What was her name again…” the tall woman mused. “Rose? Riley? Rachel?”

          “Rei,” Shinji mumbled.

          Mari internally face-palmed.

          “Gesundheit!” the woman smiled. “Oh, I feel so bad for having forgotten her name… it wasn’t River… or Ricki… or Ruth, Ray, or Reese…”

          Adam’s body jerked up.

          “Wait a second, what name did you just say?” he questioned.

          “Reese?” she responded.

          “No, no, the one before that,” he replied.

          “Rosie?” she offered.

          “No, the other one.”

          The woman stood there for a long second, thinking.

          “....Ruth?”

          Mari began to scream, and if she swore that if she had a hat in this situation, she would have thrown it on the floor.

          “WE DON’T HAVE TIME FOR THIS!” she yelled. “Sorry, but, we must go! We have a girl to save, so, GOOD-BYE, and good luck finding the mansion on your own.”

          Mari stormed back.

          The adults were frozen in shocked silence, Adam’s mouth still open in a reply.

          “Um…” Shinji said awkwardly, pointing to Mari’s retreating form. “We’re just going to go with her.”

          “Peace,” Kaworu said, waving half-assedly behind him.

\-------

          Mari led them twenty feet in front of the mansion before she realized that she had gone the wrong way.

          “FUCK!” she shouted, hitting her face. “I went the wrong way, the fish stream is  _ that  _ way!”

          “It’s okay Mari, we got sidetracked and disoriented, so it’s not your fault,” Shinji said.

          Mari curled her hands into fists and took a deep breath in. Spinning around to face the boys, she spoke in a conspiratory whisper:

          “Are they still following us?”

          Shinji and Kaworu looked behind them. Adam and the two women were still on their tail, but quite a long ways away. When they met each other’s eyes, Adam attempted to hide away with a sheepish grin, the taller woman waved at them, and the shorter woman just shrugged.

          “Yeah,” Kaworu said.

          Mari sighed.

          “I’m going to fucking kill them.”

          “Please don’t,” Shinji commented.

          “Kaworu, now might be the best time to use your super alien powers. We’re running out of options here,” Mari told him. “Do something.”

          “Like what?” he asked.

          “You could light up the entire forest. Better yet, light the entire forest on fire. Or broadcast a giant message in the stars that reads: “REI PLEASE COME HOME,” either way, I don’t fucking care,” Mari said.

          “Kaworu, what are you going to do,” Shinji asked him.

          “Hmmmm….” Kaworu thought. “I could try and light a fire to scare the lurkers away, but at the expense of destroying natural wildlife and disrupting their ecosystems…?”

          “And you could accidentally hurt Rei doing that,” Shinji admonished him. “Bad idea.”

          “She suggested it.” Kaworu pointed to Mari.

          Shinji put his hands on his hips.

          “And I’m vetoing it!” he insisted.

          Mari turned around like something had shocked her.

          “Guys, did you see that.”

          “What?” Kaworu asked.

          “There was a flash of blue,” Mari explained.

          From a dark patch near the back entrance of the mansion, another dark blue spark appeared and fizzled out.

          “There, you saw it! You saw it, right?” Mari asked, her voice now full of wonder.

          The three of them stalked over there to find someone standing in darkness.

          “Rei?” Mari called out.

          “Eek!” a voice said, and the flash of blue condensed into a curved wall that harshly pushed the three of them away.

          Shinji fell backwards, hitting his head on a rock. Mari skinned her knee but pulled herself up. Kaworu floated off the ground.

          The person gasped, and as the blue field disapparated, the stranger’s face lit up.

          “You guys scared me!!” Rei chided. She dropped her arms. “Way to warn someone before you interrupt them doing something.”

          “Rei, you’re alive!” Shinji ran up and hugged her. She allowed that for a few seconds, but she then pushed him away to get back her space.

          “What were you doing, Rei?” Mari asked, shaking her. “That was awesome!”

          “Oh, you know…” Rei giggled. “Something,”

          “Something like what?” Mari asked. "What WAS that?!"

          Rei stammered for a second on a suitable answer, but couldn’t find one. She looked to Kaworu, whose eyes were wide.

          “Dear God… you were making an AT Field,” Kaworu whispered, blown out of his mind. He looked down at the ground.

          “I thought… only angels like me could do that?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've had this chapter done for months but my anxiety/apprehension made me feel scared to post it after such a long time so I kept delaying it and delaying it but I got fed up. I want to finish this fic!


	31. Marching Band in the Woods

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mari cannot play the trumpet.

“REI, oh my god! Oh my god,” Lillith shouted, throwing her arms around her little sister as she walked back into the mansion. “You’re safe! Where did you go, you got me so worried!”

“I got a bit depressed, so I headed outside... to be alone for a while,” Rei confessed. She patted her sister’s back and snuggled into the crook of Lillith’s shoulder. “I might have lost track of time; it was dark before I knew it.”

Lillith let go of Rei and they looked at each other for a beat.

“Whoops.” Rei smiled guiltily.

Lillith groaned.

“‘Whoops” is right! The herd of lurkers is coming tonight, I thought I told you to stay inside??”

“You did,” Rei said.

“And it’s all for nothing, because Adam isn’t here yet, and if he had heard us, him and his group are being swallowed by the lurkers right now!” Lillith yelled.

Having just entered, Adam tried clearing his throat, but the sound was swallowed by a wail of lurkers from outside. They crescendoed in pitch, and with each passing second, the stomping of hundreds of feet grew louder towards the mansion.

The walls were the only barrier between them and the lurkers surrounding.

“Should we head upstairs? Maybe barricade ourselves somewhere?” Mari suggested, paling considerably as a lurker’s body made contact with the doors.

Adam chuckled; Lillith’s head shot back up.

“Lurkers aren’t that smart to try and break down the doors. If anything, they might accidentally crush their way through,” Adam said.

“Should we make a diversion?” Armisael asked.

“Oh my god, Adam!” Lillith shouted.

Lillith bolted towards him. She attempted to smack him, but Adam dodged her fist with a lazy smirk.

“Long time no see, Lillith,” Adam said. “Where’s your posse?”

“Ramiel and Sachiel?” Lillith asked. She whipped her head around. “I told them to… oh god, find Rei.”

“They’re outside?!” Arael shouted.

“Shhh, be quiet!” Adam admonished. “The lurkers will get more aggressive if they hear our exact location.”

Lillith slumped to the ground.

“Oh god, I might have killed them,” she said.

“How long ago did you send them out?” Adam asked.

“Only five minutes ago, okay?!! I was getting desperate, so I pushed them out of the back door, and told them to not come back until they found her!” Lillith replied.

“Lillith…” Adam sighed.

“Oh, shut the fuck up!” Lillith jabbed a finger into Adam’s side. “I just found my goddamn long-lost sister, I’d do anything to not fucking LOSE HER!”

“I’m sorry—”

“But you can’t even relate, can you. Your brother is long dead, isn’t he.” Lillith snarled.

Adam’s expression darkened for a few seconds, but after a second, he schooled his face back into neutrality. However, his voice betrayed his anger.

“Lillith, please. I know you have a short term memory, but honestly try to remember this,” Adam countered. “ That was just a theory of mine. I can’t prove I did have a brother.”

“No, you just ‘hoped you did,’ right?” Lillith quipped, turning away and heading towards the kitchen.

“Yes, every so often, I swore I could feel him  in my heart, yes... Lillith—where are you going?” Adam asked.

“Outside!” she yelled.

“That’s suicidal!” he yelled back.

Lillith flipped him the bird. Adam grit his teeth, and he turned back to the women behind him.

“Arael, Armisael, make a distraction towards the front. Throw something outside, make something explode, hell,  _ light the whole forest on fire.  _ I don’t care, just get the lurkers away,” Adam commanded.

“Are you going to help Lillith? That’s quite rash. We’d advise against doing it,” Armisael said to Adam’s retreating back.

Adam sighed.

“I can’t let Lillith die,” he replied.

Adam left the room.

Armisael and Arael stared at where he had left for a second, but then they sprung into action.

“Do you guys have any explosives? Alcohol? Matches?” Arael asked Shinji.

Armisael was already in the kitchen, rummaging through the cupboards.

“Rei, do we?” Shinji asked.

Rei shook her head.

Armisael’s head popped out from the kitchen, her whip-like strands of hair falling into her face.

“I found some pots and pans!” she reported. “We could try and throw them outside to make some noise.”

“Wait, make some noise….” Mari said, trailing off.

Arael and Armisael turned towards her.

Mari grinned and shot up the stairs like a rocket.

“I think I have the perfect plan!”

 

\-------

 

“... this is the stupidest thing ever,” Shinji said.

“Hm? Did I mishear you, Shinji?” Mari replied, running up to him just so she could mess up his hair. “I think you meant to say: “This is surely the best idea you’ve ever had, Mari! Gosh, you are so smart.”’

Shinji rolled his eyes. “Suuuuure.”

All of them were in the forest. Kaworu had been teleported them outside the lurkers circling the mansion, and they’d snuck to a small clearing a half-mile away.

Mari picked up a stick off the ground. She waved it like a conductor’s baton, and tapped it on some tree bark until everyone looked up at her.

“Are we ready?” Mari said.

Shinji looked at the tuba in his arms. It weighed a ton, and smelled like cobwebs and mold. Mari had found it and a trumpet stashed away behind some bookshelves, and she’d already claimed the trumpet for herself. They’d been in the basement under the mansion for who knows how long. 

“Okay, then! 3-2-1, GO!” Mari shouted.

On cue, Mari and Shinji blew into their instruments. Shinji’s tuba coughed up a cloud of dust and he choked on it for a few seconds before being able to play some loud, awful booming notes. He had no experience in playing instruments.

“ _ BLAT! BLAT BLARRRT BLAAAAAAAAAAAAT!” _

_ …  _ and apparently so did Mari.

Arael and Armisael had a pot and pan in their hands, along with a spoon and wooden soup ladle. They, the dubbed “percussion team,” half-heartedly banged on their utensils to a disjointed rhythm.

“We are the best band ever!” Mari said in-between fits of laughing. When she wasn't doubled over, she kept blowing on her trumpet as hard as she could.

The lurkers slowly emerged from the underbrush. The band gradually walked backwards to guide them.

Kaworu, their only source of light, teamed up with Rei to push any overeager lurkers away with their AT Fields.

“Hey, Rei.” Kaworu sidled up to her.

“Hm?”

“How are you conjuring such powerful AT fields? How did you figure out how to make them in the first place?”

Rei thought for a moment. Shinji, walking backwards behind them, almost tripped on a root and fell, but he caught himself and his tuba made a defeated whine.

“I was melancholy, and thinking about how alone I felt, I guess,” Rei answered.

Kaworu perked up and bounced a bit on his toes.

“Oh my god it’s the same for me!! I think about how I hate people, how humankind is immoral and how they’ve abused me, and how awfully I was treated as a child to want to kill everyone, and yeah that’s an awful thought but like, thinking back to that gives me the strongest AT Fields, haha!” Kaworu laughed.

Rei looked at him for a long second.

“Kaworu… are you okay?” she asked.

“Sure am!” he responded.

“... you might need to look inside yourself and be a bit more introspective, because, I do not think you’re okay,” Rei said with a grimace. “I’m sorry, but…”

“Nope, I’m totally fine! I’ve got Kaworu and Mari and all my friends and everything’s okay now—”

“—but—”

“—why would I need to think about the past! That  would just depress me,” Kaworu said. “I don’t like doing that so, I don’t! Except when I have to! Like... now!”

“... you’re creeping me out, dude,” Rei muttered. 

Kaworu smiled so wide his cheeks hurt.

“So, what  _ specifically _ do you think about to get your AT Field working? It’s a projection of the loneliness of a human soul, and represents the emotional barriers we erect when around others, after all,” he asked.

“Uh… well, back then, I was remembering what it was like to be passed on from group to group as members died, and how I had to fend for myself and hide in the night when bandits came and started shooting, but now I’m thinking about… my sister, I guess,” Rei replied.

“Lillith?” Kaworu questioned. He tilted his head. “I don’t understand. Doesn’t the presence of a close blood relative give one warm and positive feelings? How would you picture the ideas of being isolated and unloved from her?”

From Rei’s outstretched palm, her AT Field shimmered for a second, but then it resolved back into solid matter.

“I don’t wanna talk about it,” Rei replied.

“I’m really curious, though! I really want to understand,” Kaworu said.

Rei’s fist clenched, and she shook her head.

“We should focus on the topic at hand. There’s a lurker coming behind Shinji, would you push it away?” she grunted.

“Oh.” 

With a flourish of his hand, Kaworu’s AT Field swept under the lurker’s feet and launched him back into the trees.

Seeing Rei’s troubled expression, Kaworu shut his mouth and directed his attention more to protecting everyone.

Shinji finally tripped and fell, and his tuba jumped from his hands and down a sloped hill. It clanged the entire way down. Shinji flinched.

“Oh, nice idea, Shinji!” Mari yelled back.

“Huh??” he asked.

“Throwing it away from us would divert more of them away, and catch the attention of more lurkers still by the mansion! Good thinking!” she grinned.

“Oh… yes, I meant to do that,” Shinji whispered, laughing awkwardly under his breath.

“Hyup!” 

Mari smirked, throwing her arm back and launching her trumpet like a baseball towards the opposite way. It went an absurdly long time before falling to the ground and clanging in the distance.

“Now you all don’t have to hear anymore of my awful playing!” Mari said. She nudged the arm of Arael. “I took violin lessons as a kid, so put me in front of one and I’ll be like Mozart or who-the-fuck-ever. Just don’t make me try any woodwind instruments.”

Arael snatched her arm away and tucked her pot under her arm.

“Are we far away enough? Can we go back?” she asked.

“I’d assume so,” Kaworu replied. 

“I’m hungry,” Shinji said.

“I’m tired,” Rei added, her AT Field fizzling away. She seemed to be sweating a little.

“I’m getting a headache,” Kaworu added.

With a burst of light and energy, they were teleported by Kaworu back into the Museum’s foyer.

The groans of lurkers outside seemed to be halved, and the banging on the doors and walls came less frequently.

“Rei, you look terrible!”

Lillith came out of the kitchen and fussed over her younger sister after taking just one look at her.

“I feel like a pound of bricks fell on top of me,” Rei said, slumping to the ground. She turned to Kaworu.

“The AT Fields and stuff take so much work. You make it look so easy,” she said.

“ADAM!!!” Lillith shouted.

“WHAT?” he yelled back.

“SACHIEL AND RAMIEL ARE WITH YOU, RIGHT??”

“YEAH.”

“TELL THEM TO GET A COLD WASHCLOTH FOR MY SISTER’S FOREHEAD-- AND OH, IF THEY HAVEN’T MADE UP HER BED ALL NICE YET, TELL THEM THAT I’M GOING TO MURDER THEM IN THEIR SLEEP!”

“Lillith, this really isn’t necessary,” Rei said.

Lillith shushed her. She bent down to Rei and attempted to pick her up, and Rei pawed at her to stop for a few seconds before letting her carry her in her arms.

“Aww, you look like a bride!” Mari snickered. “That’s cute!”

Rei grimaced.

“DO YOU WANT ME TO TELL THEM THAT VERBATIM?” Adam yelled.

“WORD-FOR-WORD!” she screamed back, smirking.

**"** LILLITH? THAT’S WHAT VERBATIM ACTUALLY M… oh whatever, ALL RIGHT THEN!” 

Lillith carried her sister up the stairs, grunting all the way.

“I guess that means we should go to bed, too,” Shinji said.

Mari let out a sigh. “I’m too wired up to sleep now.”

“I feel the same way,” Kaworu said. “Hey, Mari, do you wanna stay up and guard the entrance with me?”

“Of course,” Mari replied eagerly.

“I’ll stay up too,” Shinji tried to say, before a yawn cut his sentence off.

“Shinji, go to bed,” Kaworu said, smiling.

“I wanna stay up with you guys,” he argued.

Mari patted his shoulder.

“We’ll be fine, just go to bed and we’ll be asleep with you in a few hours anyway,” she said.

“Fine…” Shinji agreed. He dragged his feet up to the room he was sharing with Mari and Kaworu.

Yawning again, he collapsed onto the four-poster bed without even pulling the blankets up to cover himself.

 

\-------

 

Shinji woke from his slumber. The room was pitch dark, and he was facing a wall.

He felt the breathing of Kaworu on the back of his neck. With slow, groggy movements, he crawled onto the foot of their bed and jumped onto the floor.

His bare feet barely making a sound on the smooth hardwood floor, he headed to the bathroom; however, he miscounted the number of doors, and opened the door to Rei’s room.

Rei was sitting by the candlelight.

She looked at the open doorway, and then moved her body to hide whatever she was doing before saying:

“Who’s there?”

“It’s me,” Shinji said.

Rei’s brow quirked. Her body resumed its normal, relaxed stance.

“Why aren’t you sleeping?” Shinji asked.

“Had a nightmare,” Rei answered.

Shinji sat down on the floor next to her. He saw that Rei was drawing something again, but he couldn’t make out what it was. There was just a lot of red.

“What was it about?” he asked. “I-I don’t mean to pry, but… if you wanna talk about it…”

Rei glanced at the door. A creak came from the floorboards outside the room.

Shinji jumped; Rei’s hands started to shake, and she frowned.

After a few agonizing seconds, Rei slowly stood up and closed her bedroom door. She sat back down. Her face was white as a ghost.

“Now probably isn’t the best time, Shinji. You should head back to bed,” Rei said, her voice robotic.

“What??” Shinji asked, confused. He looked at the door and back at Rei.

The corner of Rei’s mouth twitched. She looked him dead in the eyes.

“You should head to bed, Shinji,” she repeated.

"Bu-"

Rei grabbed Shinji’s collar, cutting off his reply, and put her lips up to his ear.

“Just go to bed, we’ll talk tomorrow. Meet me at eight p.m. at the back door.”

“Rei?” Shinji asked, worry laced in his voice.

Rei narrowed her eyes and threw them to the door and back.

“If you get there and you see anyone, I’ll be on the roof instead,” she whispered.

Rei let go of Shinji’s collar.

“Now, say aloud that you’re going to bed,” she demanded in a whisper.

“O-oh… yeah, I’m, uh, going to bed. Good night, Rei!!” Shinji said, standing up on wobbly knees and hobbling to the door.

Rei gave him a short nod. His fist clenched around the doorknob, and he hesitated on opening the door. His ears strained for any kind of sound beyond the door.

“Sweet dreams…” Rei said.

As Shinji closed Rei’s door behind him, he saw that Rei was frantically hiding her drawing supplies. The picture on the table was nowhere to be found. 

He caught her eye.

The door closed with a creak.  Shinji made a beeline for his room. He didn’t dare to look down the hall, in fear that he would see eyes watching him.

When he made it, he nearly slammed his door in fright. He burrowed under the sheets, grabbing Kaworu’s arm and throwing it around him.

He got fully comfortable.

Of course, now that he was properly situated, he remembered something.

  "Fuck!" he whispered.

He still had to go to the bathroom.


End file.
